Is AI-generated music the future of K-pop? HYBE chairman Bang Si-Hyuk thinks so.
Music is on the precipice of an AI reckoning. Last week, an AI-generated song featuring the simulated vocals of Drake and The Weeknd shook the industry with its virality, and just this week Grimes tweeted that she'll split royalties 50-50 on AI-generated songs that use her voice.
Bang Si-Hyuk, chairman of the rapidly growing entertainment conglomerate HYBE, says the prevalence of AI-made music is inevitable. "I have long doubted that the entities that create and produce music will remain human," he told Billboard this week in a cover story that traced his history-making with global superstars BTS and industry-shaking acquisitions of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande's management company, Ithaca Holdings, and hip-hop label, Quality Control.
And Si-Hyuk is not just going to watch from the sidelines. AI, he says, is "becoming a key factor for my operation and a strategy for HYBE." He points to HYBE's more recent acquisition of Supertone, a company that can clone an existing voice or create a new one that sings and speaks like the real thing (otherwise known as voice synthesis). The company also makes these voice banks available to VTubers and virtual artists for livestreams and real-time interaction.
A quick visit to Supertone's website proves that the product still needs work. A sample video on the site morphs a twenty-something woman's voice into that of a child, but it sounds like the kid has a cold. Another video — a simulation of Freddie Mercury's voice singing in Korean — is much more convincing. Si-Hyuk says that some "small-scale projects" with Supertone, which are referred to as "Project L" internally, should roll out in May.
In an interview with Mashable earlier this week, Joon Won Choi, the president of HYBE subsidiary Weverse, noted that the app would "never consider AI-generated comments or messages" as a replacement for interactions between music artists and fans on its platform. "The core of our service is the real interaction between fan and artist," said Choi, "so if even one message is generated from a computer, that's a huge risk to the core of our business." Instead of focusing on AI-generated content, he says the company's focus is "developing better tools for artists to easily monitor and moderate the conversation."
When asked if he was afraid that some might use Supertone's tech to replicate and sell the voices of the members of BTS, Si-Hyuk said, "Of course, but that doesn’t keep us from pursuing it." He says regulations around AI are crucial to maintaining the value of intellectual property. "Rather than… not using AI, I believe it is more appropriate to respond to such change in society."
A recently defunct Weverse competitor, Universe, used AI to read posts from an artist in their voice. It's creepy the first time, but after the third or fourth, it feels like a fun glimpse into the future.