Israeli Music Company Session 42 Uses AI Technology to Resurrect Deceased Stars in Song

[highplainsdem]

https://variety.com/2023/music/global/session-42-israel-ai-company-ofra-haza-song-zohar-argov-1235599887/

To manifest this vision, Antebi, CEO of Tel Aviv-based Session 42, joined forces with music industry vet Amit Shine, who serves as the company’s COO, and a trio of hit-making Israeli music producers: Tal Forer, Yinon Yahel and Stav Berger.

This month, Session 42 released its most ambitious project to date: an AI song duet titled “Kan Le Olam” (“Here Forever”). The track and attendant video, recorded by using the magic of technology to recreate the voices of deceased Israeli music legends Zohar Argov (a pioneer in the arena of Mizrahi music) and Ofra Haza — dubbed in music industry circles as “the Madonna of Israel” –dropped last month in honor of Israel’s 75th anniversary. The song became an instant viral hit.

“I knew we needed to start with the families of Zohar Argov and Ofra Haza because of ethical questions,” says Antebi. “I said, let’s let the families decide if this is what they want to do. So we went to them and told them we had a special song, about Israel’s independence, and we want to use these two icons. We told them we would not release the song unless it does the artists justice. They could veto the song at the end if they didn’t like it. And they agreed.”

-snip-

“It’s a song sort of between Israel and its people,” says Antebi. “It’s amazing how popular it has become. It’s playing in restaurants, on the radio. It’s playing all the time on various channels, every news station. Everybody talks about it. I knew we were going to get attention. But it’s been shocking just how much. But I knew what we were doing. I knew that we were going to be the first in the world to release an official song based on AI technology. And we did it.”

-snip-

This absolutely disgusts me, even though the families of the singers okayed it. The families have in effect turned those singers into zombies, just as they would have if they okayed "memorial" AI with image and voice to "chat" with survivors - an atrocity that's already being offered.

I can sort of tolerate AI being used to complete a project an artist was already working on. But not for something new, posthumous, that they never approved.

And yes, I know this sort of thing can increase sales of a singer's own, real work (which can also be an inducement for heirs to okay this sort of AI zombiefication).

I still think it's grotesque.

I've often seen it said that AI cannibalizes real human work and creativity. This song is an example of that.

And this sort of thing is also unfair to living artists. The song could have been a hit for real artists, rather than a way for an AI firm to wring some money from deceased music legends who could neither give their approval nor benefit from it.

[harumph]

1. AI (not sure "intelligence") is the right term

For Chat GPT type programs at least, Artificial Conversation Bot would be a more accurate term.

But yes, the dead should stay dead. Part of the mystique of entertainers of the past is that we can't hear them anymore. I don't want
to hear "new" Johnny Cash songs for example, because it's merely profiteering off of sentiment and nostalgia. Nostalgia
is painful for a reason. It should be. People die. It's sad. Knowing we are mortal and will die is the very framework for
our understanding of the universe. You are right, the entire exercise is grotesque and dystopian.

I recently made my teenage son read Plato's Allegory of the Cave. You can make of that what you will.

...

Socrates: Look and you will also see other people carrying
objects back and forth along the partition, things of
every kind: images of people and animals, carved
in stone and wood and other materials. Some of these
other people speak, while others remain silent.

Glaukon: A bizarre situation for some unusual captives.

Socrates: So we are! Now, tell me if you suppose it’s possible
that these captives ever saw anything of themselves or
one another, other than the shadows flitting across the
cavern wall before them?

Glaukon: Certainly not, for they are restrained, all their lives,
with their heads facing forward only.

Socrates: And that would be just as true for the objects moving
to and fro behind them?

Glaukon: Certainly.

Socrates: Now, if they could speak, would you say that these
captives would imagine that the names they gave to
the things they were able to see applied to real things?

Glaukon: It would have to be so.
Socrates: And if a sound reverberated through their cavern from
one of those others passing behind the partition, do
you suppose that the captives would think anything
but the passing shadow was what really made the
sound?

Glaukon: No, by Zeus.

Socrates: Then, undoubtedly, such captives would consider the
truth to be nothing but the shadows of the carved
objects.