WTF?! Another milestone in the story of AI's takeover has been reached. An entirely AI-created artist has secured the number one spot on Billboard's Country Digital Song Sales chart. It's the first time an AI-generated song has topped the charts, and will undoubtedly encourage an even larger wave of slop as people look to replicate the success.
The AI in question, Breaking Rust, first appeared around October, It managed to top the Billboard chart last week with a song called Walk My Walk.
Breaking Rust's Instagram page doesn't explicitly identify the band as being AI-generated. However, the profile image of a lantern-jawed cowboy is blatantly fake, as are the videos, most of which show the somber cowpoke walking around various locations. There's also an impressive clip (below) of him shoulder pressing – with poor form – what looks like about 450 pounds.
What makes it especially obvious that Breaking Rust is AI-generated are the songs themselves. I clicked on several videos on the Instragram page and generally thought they all were all samples from the same song. But no; they just all sound really, really similar.
But despite the very generic sound, Breaking Rust boasts over 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify and has a Verified Artist badge.
Breaking Rust debuted at No. 9 on the Emerging Artists chart on November 1 after generating 1.6 million official US streams, writes Billboard. The publication adds that the project is credited to songwriter Aubierre Rivaldo Taylor, who, again, may not even be a real person.
AI artists are far from new – many have gained over 1 million streams on Spotify. The Velvet Sundown, for example, made headlines when, having already released two albums, admitted that their music, images, and backstory were created by AI.
Real musicians have long protested against AI companies using their work to train AI models without permission – over 1,000 released a silent album protesting against a UK law change earlier this year. The success of Breaking Rust highlights a new concern for musicians: competing with AI systems trained on the very music they created.
In June, Deezer said that AI-generated music accounted for just 0.5% of streams on the platform. However, seven out of every 10 streams of these tracks were fraudulent – "listened" to by another AI to generate revenue for their creators.