With the rise of AI ‘slop,’ Canada’s creative sector sets sights on licensing regime

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OTTAWA — On Nov. 1, Xania Monet appeared for the first time on the Adult R&B Billboard chart. One week later, the song ‘Walk my Walk’ by Breaking Rust topped Billboard’s country digital song sales chart.

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While both performers look and sound human, they’re not. Both are generated by artificial intelligence.

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Monet was the first AI-generated artist to debut on a Billboard airplay chart.

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For human artists, it is immense cause for concern.

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“I’m seeing increasingly people are scared and they’re angry and they are upset about what’s happening here,” Arun Chaturvedi, president of the Songwriters’ Association of Canada, said in an interview when asked about the reaction to AI-generated artists.

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“As it was, 100,000 songs are being uploaded to Spotify a day from human creators, and now that just is increasing exponentially with this sort of AI slop, which is making it even harder for artists to gain traction.”

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Musicians aren’t the only artists who are worried. The House of Commons Heritage committee on Monday will begin drafting a report after completing hearings for a study on AI and the creative sector earlier this month.

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MPs on the committee heard from groups and unions representing creative industries, including music, publishing and TV and movie production.

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AI-generated content is only possible because AI systems ingest massive amounts of existing content. Creative groups take issue with AI’s use of copyright-protected works without permission and want to establish a licensing system covering such use.

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A group representing Canadian publishers pointed out that not even the prime minister is immune from AI competition.

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John Illingworth, executive director of the Association of Canadian Publishers, said during an appearance at the committee there has been a “deluge” of low-quality, AI-generated books on the big distribution platforms.

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“An Amazon.ca search for ‘Mark Carney biography,’ for example, brings up a slew of purported biographies of our prime minister. Many have AI-generated cover art and some rank higher in search results than his own Value(s),” Illingworth said, referring to Carney’s book published in 2021.

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“The average consumer has no means of distinguishing a properly researched book from incoherent slop until they buy it,” he added.

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Victoria Shen, executive director at the Writers Guild of Canada, told the MPs generative AI is “trained on the work of artists and creators and now threatens their livelihood.”

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Tania Kontoyanni, chair of the board at the Union des Artistes, said artists have been feeding a beast that now threatens to devour them.

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Wyatt Tessari L’Allie, founder and executive director at AI Governance and Safety Canada, said platforms like Spotify and Google are already flooded with AI content — and that’s only the beginning.

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“Within a few years, when we will likely have high-quality customized AI content available on demand at very low cost, we could easily be in a situation where over 90 per cent of what Canadians see on their platforms is AI-generated,” he said.