Photo Credit: Roberto Reposo
Should AI music get its own separate chart? Kelly Clarkson thinks it should, even amid her own enthusiasm for AI developments, and she’s not alone.
Kelly Clarkson believes that AI can play a significant role in the music industry, but a clear distinction should be made between AI-assisted and human-created music. To that end, the singer and talk show host thinks AI music should be given its own separate chart.
Clarkson shared her thoughts on AI during the September 30 episode of “Las Culturistas,” the podcast hosted by Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers. During a segment in which guests are given one minute to deliver a take on a topic of their choosing, Clarkson took the opportunity to explain her thoughts on artificial intelligence.
“I love AI. There are very amazing things with AI that I am obsessed with, and I’m very into it artistically, too. I have fun with it just like everybody else does,” Clarkson said. “But when you see AI artists competing on a chart with humans, I have an issue. I think there should be a separate chart.”
“I think it’s really cool and creative what we’re going to create with AI, musically. People that maybe can’t do certain things will maybe be able to do it now,” she added. “I think it’s a fun field to play in, but I don’t think that they should be competing with humans. It’s basically like having the Olympics, and then you’re having robots compete with humans.”
Listeners were quick to slam Clarkson’s pro-AI stance despite her expressing a need for limitations on the technology within the music industry. But she isn’t the first person to believe that AI-assisted art should be gated separately from human-created art—she’s just one of the biggest names to speak on it publicly.
In fact, the music industry could be headed for a reality in which two different music industries occupy the same platforms, yet operate under different expectations, economics, and definitions. One industry will remain artist-centric, focusing on the identity and human connection of the artist, while the other will be built around rapidly generated music that is quickly consumed and replaced almost immediately—like a sit-down restaurant versus fast food.
“We are entering into a time of two types of business in music,” Nicholas Gunn, Blue Dot Music founder and multi-instrumentalist, told Digital Music News. “One that is generative AI-driven, that is highly transient, represented on the DSPs, under AI labeling, and on generative AI sites such as Udio. The other being the artist-centric model being represented on the DSPs without labeling and via DTC.”
If that future includes separate music charts for AI-made content and human-led creations, that might not be a terrible solution to an ever-growing problem that simply isn’t going away.