Will.i.am has launched a new interactive radio platform powered by AI.
The Black Eyed Peas singer has announced “RAiDiO.FYI,” a new radio service that features AI presenters. The service aims to “reimagine radio the way the iPhone did the phone,” according to the official website.
Spotify launched its AI DJ a year later, a tool that recognizes your listening habits and suggests new songs using artificial intelligence. However, RAiDiO.FYI differs from Spotify’s offering in that it allows for two-way communication: users can press a button to talk to the AI at any time.
The platform’s AI-driven hosts will interact directly with listeners, encouraging them to ask questions about the music or story behind a song or discuss current events, sports, culture and fashion. Listeners instantly become “active participants, choosing topics, asking questions and chatting with AI characters.”
Check out a video of Will.i.am demonstrating the technology below.
joined #TheBreakfastClub to introduce a new radio experience that uses AI to enhance the radio experience for hosts and DJs.
If you could reduce your search time, would you? Listen to learn more about! @iamwill… pic.twitter.com/PCRbjEZn5W
— Power 105.1 (@Power1051) August 21, 2024
Last year, Will.i.am used an appearance Sirius XM to share his thoughts on whether or not AI is benefiting the music industry. In response, the Grammy Award-winning polymath said, “We all have a voice, and everyone is compromised because there is no right or ownership over your facial computation or your vocal frequency.”
He explained his cynicism by adding: “You get a FaceTime or Zoom call and because there’s no intelligence in the call, there’s nothing to authenticate an AI call or a personal call.”
He continued: “That’s what’s urgent, protecting our mathematical face. I am my mathematical face. I don’t own it. I own the rights to ‘I Got A Feeling,’ I own the rights to the songs I wrote, but I don’t own the rights to my face or my voice?”
The news comes at a time when the role of AI in the music industry is increasingly being debated. Earlier this month, K-pop entertainment giant SM Entertainment announced the upcoming debut of its first AI-generated singer, named Nævis.
Earlier this year, more than 200 artists, including Billie Eilish, Robert Smith, Stevie Wonder and Nicki Minaj, signed an open letter written by the Artists Rights Alliance warning against the “predatory” use of AI in music.
Many hip-hop legends have also weighed in on the AI music debate. Producer Timbaland previewed a Notorious B.I.G. verse that was generated by AI and is working on AI software to commercialize the phenomenon. Snoop Dogg, meanwhile, said AI music had gotten “out of control” when it came to a Michael Jackson cover of C-Murder’s “Down With My N’s.”
Recently, Sting said that AI doesn’t impress him and that songwriters will have to defend their human capital against AI. Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins, meanwhile, said that AI will change music forever because others can “game the system” and “aren’t going to spend 10,000 hours in a basement.”
Peter Hook also took aim at songs written with the help of AI, saying that every single one created has always been “crap”.
One of the most prolific examples of artists speaking out, however, is Bad Seeds frontman Nick Cave, who described the concept as “a grotesque mockery of what it means to be human.” He then went on to say that he wanted AI platforms like ChatGPT to “go fuck themselves and leave songwriting alone.”
Similarly, Guns N’ Roses members Slash and Duff McKagan also weighed in on the debate, with the former saying that using technology “doesn’t really excite me” and the latter saying ZikNation that he had no intention of letting AI “affect my creativity.”
Former Oasis members have also spoken out after a British band used AI to imagine what the Britpop icons might look like if they reformed and released a new album.
At the time, Liam praised what he heard of the album, writing: “This is better than any other snizzle out there,” while Noel Gallagher said ZikNation In an interview: “These fucking idiots clearly have too much free time and too much money to be able to afford the technology to do this just for laughs.”
Grimes has been particularly vocal about her support for the evolution of music technology, including artificial intelligence. Last year, she gave fans the green light to use her voice to create new songs using artificial intelligence, on the condition that she get half of the royalties generated by the tracks, as she would with any artist she works with.
In other Will.i.am news, he recently revealed that U2 inspired the Black Eyed Peas’ hit song ‘I Gotta Feeling’, with the musician claiming he “wrote the chorus for them”.
