They may be known for being pretty liberal with their use of the ban hammer, but The Metal Archives recently made the correct call when they decided to ban all AI-generated music from their databases.
With the rising ubiquity of artificial intelligence in everything from chatbots to social media trolls to album covers, it’s no shock that the tech has wormed its way into heavy metal. Digital streaming platforms like Spotify are constantly inundated with AI-generated bullshit these days, so it only makes sense that a site like Metal Archives, which seeks to document metal bands from around the world, would start seeing those “bands” surface.
As a result, a post was made by site admin Derigin on the site’s main page that outlines how such music would be handled, which is to say it won’t be allowed on the site at all.
“Recently, there has been a noticeable uptick in the number of bands being submitted to the site which have AI generated music. We want to make it clear what our position is on these bands, and how we plan to move forward in assessing them.
“It went without saying, at least up until now, that when we imagined growing the largest and most complete database of metal music, part of that vision was the preservation of art and human expression through music. Until AI, that was a given. The music described on the site is, in some way, played, programmed, and composed by a human being. That still remains an important criterion for us, and it is our belief that AI generated music does not satisfy that requirement.
“With the above in mind, we won’t be accepting bands with AI generated albums, and we will scrutinize more thoroughly submissions suspected of having AI generated music.
“For those users submitting bands, if you have a band suspected of having AI generated music, we may call upon you to provide evidence to prove otherwise, whether it’s behind-the-scenes material, statements from the band or its label, evidence the band played live, promotional material showing the band is genuine, and so on. The more evidence we have to show that such a band is real, and its music composed by a human being, the better. Our goal isn’t to make this harder on you, or anyone for that matter, but we do want to stay true to our vision for the site.
“This policy isn’t perfect and is a work-in-progress which may evolve over time. We know there will be some bands with AI generated music mistakenly added to the site, and we also know mistakes can be made and bands without AI generated material may be flagged for having AI generated music. With your help, we hope to avoid this as much as possible.”
Good on The Metal Archives, for this one. While I generally disagree with some of their decisions about which band is “metal enough” to make it onto the database, it’s good to see a website actually stick to their convictions and seek to only preserve human artistry.
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