Against songs from the “digital noise”: authors oppose artificial intelligence

When, at the start of the Second World War, Churchill threw his full support behind the work of the technological institute on the Island, which brought together several thousand scientists led by Alan Turing, the aim was to “break” the German Enigma, one of the two most powerful devices for creating ciphers. Thanks to those ciphers, German land divisions, air forces and submarines were achieving lightning conquest across Europe and beyond. Many consider this to be one of the key reasons for the end of the war and the victory of the Allied forces. Alan Turing is regarded as a pioneer of computer technology, but he was also the first to ask: “Can machines think?” From that moment until 1956, which is officially regarded as the birth of AI as a scientific field, and right up to the present day, research has only intensified.

Today, we live in a time when machines are replacing us, accompanied by a growing fear of the unknown: where does this lead, and what is the ultimate goal? Once, the aim was to stop a war, understand communication on the enemy side, and create a machine that could interpret it and provide an advantage. Yet the core idea was contained in the philosophical question posed by Turing himself: can machines think? Today, it seems that the paradigm has shifted to a different question: can machines perform?

I will not dwell on the basics of AI, on what we all read so much about today — logic, rules, symbols, mathematical reasoning and problem-solving. But the fact remains that the development of deep neural networks, powerful servers and databases has enabled the meteoric rise of AI.

Of course, today we are pioneers in consuming this technology in an environment that remains an “El Dorado” in legal terms, because the legal framework does not anticipate the future and therefore deals mainly with consequences and damage control. At the same time, this opens a wide field for philosophical interpretations and for dialogue among those who are meant to teach us how to master this wild horse. TANJUG / Jadranka Ilić

In the field of media and contemporary culture, which is the subject of this text, everything echoes with that old question: can machines perform?

At Kolarac Endowment, we are at the centre of the performative ecosystem, surrounded by music authors, creators and performers, digital content creators, writers, publishers, film, theatre and visual artists, and all those around them. From that perspective, we see a picture that is highly complex and raises a great many questions. The actors are diverse, ranging from those who, though still relatively few in number, quickly anticipate reality and move towards AI, learning it, using it and even training their own models, to those at the opposite extreme, who sense its power and see it as a kind of tsunami approaching, with no idea how to respond.

We all now know that anyone today can “make” a musical composition, a song, in one minute, even without any musical talent or knowledge. The world’s two biggest AI generators, Suni and Udio, operate as text-based models, like ChatGPT. It is enough to enter a prompt into the programme — a 1970s-style rock ballad, with lyrics about the unrequited love of a lonely musician wandering the world, featuring guitar, drums, piano, bass guitar and a raspy male vocal — and the song will be ready in a minute. However, that song has been made by an AI generator, because the system has been trained to create a song from scratch out of digital noise. The model knows what the frequencies of different instruments and human voices should sound like. However, that work was created by AI, not by a human being.

That is how, among others, the “fake” band The Velvet Sundown came into being, deceiving millions of listeners on Spotify. In addition to generating music, these systems also use so-called stream-boosting, meaning algorithms that artificially “play” such songs, pushing them to the very top of music charts and generating revenue.

In the music industry, major news emerged a few weeks ago when the three largest record companies, which account for more than 80 per cent of the global recorded music market — Universal Music, Warner and Sony Music — asked the world’s music charts to remove all AI-generated music. They believe the principle must be upheld that music is the product of human labour, not of a machine that generates content entirely on its own. At the same time, they do not dispute that AI can be used as a tool in production. This would avoid the possibility of AI music being included in the charts.

Recently, Sony Music filed a new lawsuit against the company Udio, which had taken 30,000 compositions from YouTube without authorisation in order to train its AI models, although this has already been done with several million songs to date. Publishers described this as theft on an epic scale. In this way, copyright was violated and thousands of creators were harmed, without being asked, without their consent, and without any regard for a legal framework in which human beings and their authored works would be at the centre of the system. They were joined by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). Victoria Oakley, IFPI’s chief executive, said publicly: “As fans, we want to recognise the achievements of the artists who create the music we love, and it is right that the charts continue to spotlight music at the heart of which is human creativity. When properly licensed and authorised, artificial intelligence offers exciting opportunities to enhance the creative toolkit. These principles pave the way for such innovation, while at the same time ensuring that we do not include tracks generated by systems that loot artists and their music. Artificial intelligence is evolving rapidly, and it is vital that the music community takes the lead in ensuring that technology and human artistry grow together in a responsible way.”

Although publishers had already begun one form of prevention by introducing hidden digital code, a watermark inaudible to the human ear, into musical works in order to prevent scanning and use for training AI models, they have now taken an organised step further. One idea was that such content, generically labelled “AI slop”, should be removed from all charts. Another was the isolation of AI-generated content through “walled gardens”, a condition Universal Music sought to impose on Udio. Within such a framework, users would be able to experiment with star catalogues, generate and remix material and more, but with the restriction that such content could not be exported or downloaded outside the platform.

The key demands put forward by publishers and organisations from the phonographic industry may be summarised as follows:

- AI systems should not be allowed to use protected compositions without an appropriate legal basis or licence when training their models;

- Authors and performers, as rights holders, should be the only ones entitled to decide on the use of their work for AI and to receive appropriate financial compensation if they agree;

- AI companies must be transparent about which data were used to train their models;

- The issue of AI-generated voices or imitation of artists is particularly sensitive. IFPI advocates protection of performers’ voices, likenesses, identities and artistic styles from unauthorised commercial imitation;

- What is being advocated is not a ban, because AI should be a partner, not a replacement, for creators, but rather a model in which technological progress and the rights of creators advance together.

This trend of using and training AI models is present everywhere, including in the creative industries: in music, film and television, as well as in gaming, advertising and elsewhere.

Will humans still be able to think?

Here is an example of where AI is present in the film industry. It is involved in script development and dramaturgy, storyboarding, concept art, casting, digital locations, shot generation, face replacement or alteration, digital doubles, the de-ageing of actors, dubbing, translation, automatic lip-sync, editing, sound design and visual effects. From a vast database of film material, AI can create what is effectively a new film. We all still remember the major strike by screenwriters (WGA), actors and other performers (SAG-AFTRA) in the United States in 2023, which lasted almost half a year. They were fully aware that, based on footage of an actor, AI could create a credible model, or replica, that could be used in the future.

This strike led to certain agreements and standards, but what were actors actually most afraid of? Any film in production can have up to 100 hours of recorded material, yet only around two hours are ultimately used on average. After a certain number of years, a new narrative or script could be created, and actors’ replicas could be placed in an entirely different context, speaking a completely different textual narrative. This created considerable fear among actors, as well as among others involved in the film production chain.

In film, as in television production and advertising, AI today can independently create a human voice, intonation, lip movements and synchronisation. In production terms, this means that a television programme, for example, could instantly acquire as many new versions as there are spoken languages on the planet. In the gaming industry, the application is exceptionally advanced and sophisticated, making it possible to create new worlds entirely personalised to the player.

Across various categories of the creative industries, the use of AI is very widespread in film, music, television and photography, while in advertising, gaming and design the level of AI use is extremely high. Even in architecture, the level of use is high.

All of this has contributed to a dramatic acceleration and expansion of production, making work easier for content creators. In the final calculation, however, authors may not have gained much benefit, because the level of production itself has increased.

What today is the product of humans, and what of machines?

When it comes to cultural institutions such as Kolarac Endowment, we are actively monitoring developments in our ecosystem. UNESCO, for example, published the first global document on ethical standards relating to AI back in 2021, and in 2025 an independent expert group report, CULTAI, was published after UNESCO established the group to address the relationship between culture and AI. In line with these trends, Kolarac Endowment is working on its first document, AI and culture policy of Kolarac Endowment, whose primary aim is protection — in the domain of AI policy, rules, contracts and archive digitisation — then opening space for experimentation through an AI lab, artistic projects and AI education, and finally positioning through Kolarac Forum AI and culture, international partners and European projects.

Given the overall picture of AI development, it is clear that we must anticipate its role, significance and control within a system that the global community must create. That is the only way we will have a chance of understanding where all this is leading.

And here, instead of an answer, one could pose a counter-question to the famous Alan Turing: will humans still be able to think?