The move to rectify "lip-syncing" by the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture and Sports is a serious warning about the risk of music stages being "swapped" for value.
For many years, lip-syncing has become a "public secret". Many artists choose to release pre-recorded versions to ensure perfection and avoid stage risks.
But when this is abused, the boundary between performance and "screening" is blurred. Audiences buy tickets to listen to live singing, not to witness a synchronization of voice acting with pre-recorded sound.
They can accept a faint note, a moment of breathlessness, because that's a real performer.
But the feeling of being deceived is not easy to forgive.
Because, it is the human limits, true emotions, improvisation, and even mistakes that create long-lasting vitality for a performance.
A performance that is perfect to every rhythm, if it lacks the true emotions of an artist in the performance space, in the end, it is just an emotionless product.
Singing with a real voice in front of the audience is a dialogue with the public.
More worryingly, when the story has not stopped at lip-syncing, a new "wave" is emerging, AI singers impersonating real artist voices.
Artificial intelligence can create almost perfect voices, producing "new recordings" of famous singers but without their participation.
This is not only a matter of ethics, but also infringement of personal rights, copyright and reputation.
Audiences are led into a fake experience, while artists are "stole" their voices, which are the core professional assets.
If not controlled, this technology can be completely exploited for worse purposes such as fraud, slander or extortion.
From an artistic perspective, the appearance of AI singers raises a big question, if everything can be created perfectly by machines, then where is the role of artists?
The answer is, an AI product can cause curiosity, even create a strong effect in the short term. But in the long run, it is difficult to replace the empathy and connection that a real artist brings.
Art is not just sound, but also story, experience and living emotions.
The two phenomena of lip-syncing and fake AI singers, although different in form, share the same nature, reducing the authenticity of art and infringing on the audience's right to enjoy real values.
Tightening management is necessary, but more important is the awareness of professionals.
In an era where technology can create everything, the "real" is the most precious thing.
