Possessing many songs that have caused a fever such as "Ông bà anh", "Xứng đôi cưới thôi", "Bác tài ơi"... Le Thien Hieu is one of the musicians and singers who orients their composition based on personal experiences and everyday language. Talking to reporters, Le Thien Hieu analyzed legal loopholes in music data management, and at the same time expressed his views on the boundaries between technology and human creativity.
What do you think when an AI can "self-compose" and "self-sing" a song that is no less catchy than humans? Are we being too strict when refusing to recognize AI as a "colleague"?
- As soon as ChatGPT appeared, I foresaw this would happen, so when it really happened, I was not too surprised. If I say colleagues, this is not entirely accurate, more precisely, AI is a tool (on the path of being legalized) for customizing countless different pieces of art from my colleagues.
How do you assess the trend of AI singing or remixing old songs into Rock style or other genres? Is this a "revival" of heritage or a form of "cooking" that disrespects the original?
- If considering according to the Law on Intellectual Property, all acts of copying, derivating, transmitting, or commercially exploiting from works owned by a specific author that have not been licensed by the author or representative unit are considered copyright infringement (except in cases of using the work for purposes of commentary, criticism, teaching or research). For an artwork, in terms of ethical behavior, AI cannot distinguish right from wrong because it operates based on the user's command, so for AI "revving the heritage" without official license, in my opinion, the responsibility lies with the commander.
In your opinion, what will be the final "shield" protecting the value of a true musician to not be dissolved in this wave of industrialization?
- Humans are the last shield! Because what we have are stories, emotional experiences, life journeys, joys, anger, love, and hatred,... something that AI does not have. In fact, that is what creates a complete work. We can release music slower, make music longer, but the way we metaphor, swap, the way people play words in melody is something that AI can hardly imitate. People with enough emotions will always find each other and feel each other's stories through words. When there are too many people who like to listen to AI music, I am not worried about my profession, but what makes me most concerned is the spiritual life of the listener.
If an AI composes itself based on data from millions of songs by predecessors (which may include your music), then in your opinion, who should the royalties belong to: AI programmers, prompters, or musicians who "donate data" invisibly?
- As far as I know, with the sophistication of AI building algorithms, the way AI composes (temporarily understood as cutting and pasting operations) is carried out on a large and complex scale (restructuring and simultaneously taking samples from millions of works stored in cyberspace) in just a few minutes to create a new work - this is a huge "gray area" and copyright money is completely vague here! Copyright money can only be recovered when you know who the work belongs to, but with the AI's way of doing things, you can absolutely not determine it. When there are no specific regulations, anyone can register for copyright for an AI-composed song and of course will benefit according to the law. Hopefully in the future we will find the optimal solution to solve this problem!
The development speed of AI is exponential and the truth is that we have not yet developed a system to protect the rights of artists before this boom. This is a story not only in Vietnam but a common situation around the world. I hope that in the future there will be bright spots in the deployment of a system to protect the rights of artists.
The act of AI arbitrarily remixing old music without asking for permission from the original author is rampant. Do you propose a technical solution or process to "mark sovereignty" right from the input stage of AI?
- A very large industry alliance (global scale) will be needed to unify the "hidden mark" form of frequency spectrum or security phase if you want to "mark sovereignty" of works created by humans, but I think this is impossible. For each individual artist, the issue of "protecting sovereignty" completely depends on the operation of the music distributor they are cooperating with to release products. Specifically, is the distributor implementing any AI training project? If so, artists can request to exit the project before releasing the product. Although it is not possible to 100% ensure the safety of the work before AI, currently, this is the most feasible way that artists can do to limit this issue.
What do you think about establishing a "clean music data bank" for paid AI learning, instead of letting it "sweep" freely on the internet as it is now?
- If that really happens, I completely support it.
AI can be a tool to help independent musicians (Indie) reduce production costs. But without a good copyright management mechanism, will AI help young artists move faster, or will it itself "swallow" their livelihood opportunities from your perspective?
- AI will help users move faster (on a short distance) but cannot go further (on a long distance). For me, a short distance is 1-2 years, a long distance is 10-20 years. If the purpose is to stroll around, receiving a piece of music with just one command is also a way to entertain, but if you want to stick with music for a long time, AI will definitely make your creativity gradually fade away. For an artist, the creative process helps discover yourself and create a deep connection with yourself or with the world - dependence on AI will make you lose the ability to do this.
If you had to live with AI in a professional cultural industry, which way would you choose to adapt?
- If "AI is a colleague", then in my opinion, each person will have a different way of working.I am not too concerned about the "work" of AI, I will still do what I am doing and learn what needs to be learned to improve my skills.I do not make music with Prompt, but when producing, I still take advantage of technology to make products (for example, using utilities in software or other supporting plugins).AI will have AI's audience, I and other artists will also have our own audience.Let's just happily live together because every branch will create new opportunities for everyone.
