Singer-producer Grimes, Elon Musk’s ex, hears the future on the AI frontier

NEW YORK – In April, when Heart On My Sleeve, a track credited to artificial intelligence (AI) versions of Canadian singers Drake and The Weeknd,

became an unauthorised hit online,

many in the music industry fretted loudly about the legal and creative risks to come.

But Grimes, the Canadian producer and pop singer who has long been enthralled with visions of the future, saw opportunity.

For years, the 35-year-old had been dabbling with fledgling technology in the realm of generative AI, using the imperfect tools available to create a lullaby; a set of meditations; a Grimes chatbot a la ChatGPT; and plenty of science-fiction and anime-inspired visual art with services such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion.

But the rapid mainstreaming of passable voice-emulating filters – tools that allow users to tweak existing vocals to sound like someone else, notably famous artistes such as Drake, Michael Jackson or Taylor Swift – struck Grimes as more than just a novelty. They could be a teachable moment, a source of inspiration and even a side business.

“I’ll split 50 per cent of royalties on any successful AI-generated song that uses my voice,” Grimes tweeted to her more than one million followers, referring to the royalties for the recording itself. She clarified in an interview that the songwriter would be entitled to all profits from the composition or publishing. “Feel free to use my voice without penalty. I have no label and no legal bindings.”

Then, she and her team rolled out Elf.tech, an easy-to-use software that aids producers and songwriters – amateur and professional alike – in making it sound like Grimes is singing their song.

So far, there have been more than 15,000 vocal transformations using the tool, called GrimesAI-1, and more than 300 complete songs submitted for distribution to official streaming services with the help of Grimes’ behind-the-scenes apparatus.

Over a recent Zoom call, Grimes – whose real name is Claire Elise Boucher and who shares two children aged three and 1½ with her former boyfriend, American entrepreneur Elon Musk – discussed the project so far, musing that her out-of-body celebrity status and long-time obsession with AI have combined to make her the perfect vessel for experimentation.

Heart On My Sleeve seemed like a tipping point. What was that moment like for you, as someone who has been playing around in this space for years?

I was excited pretty much in every way, even with people talking about the risks. I love AI, but I am kind of worried that this isn’t more of a discussion, so I think it was useful. And I was excited that we could definitely get access to this technology now, because we tried to make the Grimes voice five years ago and it kept just being not quite there.

Where does your journey with AI start?

Honestly, it began when I was a kid, which is weird, maybe. We were going through my old college sketch pads last year and we found a bunch of AI theory. I’ve always been talking about this, it just wasn’t possible before. But I started getting into the possibilities of art a bit before the crypto times. That’s when we were trying to open-source Grimes for the first time – in 2018 or 2019.

What does it mean to “open-source” Grimes?

I’m interested in the art of identity. We tried to sell my soul – 10 per cent of it – in a legally binding agreement. But no one cared. Also, it’s at a ridiculously high price that no one will ever buy – like US$10 billion (S$13.5 billion). But if they do buy it, then I accept my fate and it’d be worth it.

So, how do you go from that to open-sourcing Grimes musically?

I feel probably less pain than the average person would about such things because the amount of ego death that I’ve had to go through to even just continue being functional is pretty high. The sort of weird, icky feeling a lot of people get when they hear their voice being used in a way that they did not intend – I’m just subject to more crazy press than the average person. I’m so used to it.

Grimes started because I was in a punk scene and it seemed edgy to put on a pink dress and dance around and make pop music. Part of what I was interested in doing at the time was upsetting people. Even now, what are the boundaries? What is the Overton window of art? What is allowed?

How would you explain to, say, your grandmother, what you are doing with AI now?

People keep getting upset, being like, “I want to hear something that a human made”. And I’m like, humans made all of this. You still have to write the song, produce the song and sing the vocal. The part that is AI is taking the harmonics and the timbre of the vocal and moving them to be consistent with my voice, as opposed to the person’s original voice. It’s like a new microphone.

How are you confronting the idea that somebody could make a hateful or obscene song in Grimes’ voice?

The good thing about the music industry being so against this is that it seems pretty easy to strike things down. But I also think it’s good for there to be one edgelord moment. With regard to making AI more safe and more culturally productive and helpful, it’s good to get things out of the system when they’re least damaging and least popular. I sort of don’t mind if Grimes is the mechanism.

Do you think that Drake AI or Grimes AI negates the need for real Drake or real Grimes?

No, I don’t think so. Maybe for me, but I kind of want that. Feeling amazing from making beautiful art is something that has typically been behind a gate for a lot of people – extreme amounts of time and energy, years of technical training. I think it’s valuable that there’s a tool with which, if you have a beautiful idea, you can make a beautiful thing and access that. NYTIMES