AI technology is slowly becoming more common in the music industry with its latest achievement being able to "revive" Randy Travis's singing voice after he lost it to stroke.
In an interview with CBS News, Warner Music Nashville Co-President Cris Lacy disclosed the process to clone the country singer's voice to produce Travis's newest song, "Where That Came From."
According to Lacy, Warner Music used 42 vocal recordings of Travis to digitally replicate the voice and put it over fellow country singer James DuPre's vocals.
The whole process was consented to and supervised by Travis and his producer Kyle Lehning.
Travis suffered a stroke in 2013 causing him to lose his voice. It took the singer many years just to regain his motor skills to walk, spell, and read.
Before the unfortunate event, Travis was widely known for his country and gospel songs in the 80s like "Storms of Life" and "No Place Like Home."
The release of "Where That Came From" is expected to create a precedent bridging the safe use of AI with Tennessee's unique law to protect its musicians and performers from the dangers of the technology.
Warner Music Could Potentially Revive More Artists Using AI
With "Where That Came From" receiving relative success from Travis's fans, the situation provides a path for Warner Music to lean more into technology to boost profits.
Warner Music Group owns the licensing rights to many music artists' vocals, including dead ones, many of which remain profitable solely due to their brand name.
The case is already nothing new with other studios securing deals with dead personalities' estates to revive their voices back from the dead.
AI Technology Takes Steps Towards Music Industry
The revival of Travis's voice is only the latest report on AI becoming more accepted into the music industry despite the dangers it poses.
Amid its growing popularity in the industry, several music artists already raised concerns about potential risks posed by AI to their privacy and livelihood.
Among the first uses of AI when it was starting to get viral was in digitally-generated voices of music artists being used to produce songs and covers, many of which were made without authorization or compensation to the musicians.
It does not help that OpenAI, one of the current forefront AI firms, has reportedly wooed Hollywood to establish a presence in the industry.
In recent reports, the technology has already been used to produce a whole music video and provide vocals of rapper Tupac and Snoop Dogg in one of Drake's latest diss tracks.
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