Roko's Basilisk
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AI Hits The Charts

AI Hits The Charts

Plus: McCartney’s AI flop, Google’s flight tool, Ring’s upgrades.

Roko's Basilisk
November 19, 2025

Here’s what’s on our plate today:

🧪 AI music floods platforms, fans can’t tell it’s fake.
🧠 Google’s AI travel tool, Ring’s new spy cams, McCartney’s “meh” AI track.
🧑‍💻 Brain Snack: How to build with sound, not noise.
🗳️ Poll: Should AI music require mandatory labels?

Let’s dive in. No floaties needed…

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The Laboratory

Inside generative AI’s impact on the music industry

A Deezer–Ipsos survey found that nearly all listeners, 97%, couldn’t distinguish AI-generated songs from those made by human musicians. Photo Credit: Reuters.

Among the many use cases of artificial intelligence, its generative ability has so far captured the most interest among most end-users and enterprises. The ability to generate content by inputting a simple prompt into an AI tool allows users a large amount of creative freedom and the ability to reduce both the time and resources used in content creation.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT, released in 2022, was the breaking point. When users interacted with it for the first time, many were blown away by its ability to write poems, stories, emails, and even business briefs at lightning-fast speeds.

Since then, the use of generative AI has permeated across industries and diversified into creating visuals and speech. Today, AI-generated content has moved beyond research and into users' homes by automating tasks like voice-overs, animation, subtitles, and more.

The generative AI explosion

A pivotal moment for AI’s generative ability came when a song mimicking the work of Drake and The Weeknd landed on TikTok and Spotify and quickly spread like wildfire across the internet.

The song, Heart on My Sleeve, generated huge buzz and praise among hip-hop fans, not just for its catchy lyrics and melody, but for a surprising twist: the artists it featured hadn’t actually created the song.

These early viral moments previewed a much larger shift.

Which brings us to 2025. Recently, a survey conducted by Deezer–Ipsos showed that 97% of listeners are unable to tell the difference between songs created by AI and those composed by humans. The survey was based on responses from 9,000 participants across eight countries, including the U.S., Britain, and France.

The survey also showed that a majority of listeners, 73%, supported disclosure when AI-generated tracks are recommended, 45% sought filtering options, and 40% said they would skip AI-generated songs entirely.

Deezer also noted that it has witnessed a huge increase in the number of AI music submissions, with more than 50,000, or about a third of total uploads sent in every day.

The survey reflects the increase in the use of AI in generating content for mass consumption, and highlights the challenges music distributors, platforms, and artists face at a time when many are questioning payment structures and copyright ownership.

To get a better understanding of how AI-generated music is flooding the streaming industry, one has to look no further than searching for the name Breaking Rust on the internet.

Synthetic songs go mainstream

According to a report from the Independent, the country artist named Breaking Rust landed the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart for the second week in a row with the hit single Walk My Walk.

Breaking Rust has more than two million monthly listeners on Spotify and eight songs credited to an artist named Aubierre Rivaldo Taylor. A figure whose existence appears entirely digital.

Not realizing that the music was AI-generated, fans have been asking the ‘artist’ to tour in places like Australia and London, praising the vocals and songwriting as if they were the work of a human musician.

Before Breaking Rust, Velvet Sundown, another AI-generated band, gained popularity on music streaming platforms, testing the boundaries of AI music deception.

The band gained prominence in June 2025 when it suddenly went viral on Spotify, and only confirmed the following month that it was AI-generated content. The AI group's most popular song has been streamed more than three million times.

However, they seem to be the start, and highlight that concerns raised by publishers, studios, artists, and streaming platforms are not unfounded.

What creators stand to lose

According to a CISA study published in December 2024, even though musicians and visual creators are driving the boom in generative AI content, they stand to lose heavily from it.

By 2028, they could see 24% and 21% of their earnings disappear, adding up to a combined loss of around €22 billion over five years, €10 billion from music and €12 billion from film and video. The study further shared that the market for music and AV content generated by AI is expected to increase exponentially in the next five years, growing from around €3 billion in 2024 to €64 billion in 2028.

Copyright chaos intensifies

Universal and Udio’s decision to settle their lawsuit and collaborate on a licensed AI music platform signals a broader industry shift toward regulated partnerships instead of outright bans. Photo Credit: Britannica.

Then there is the question of copyrights. Legal battles are defining AI music's boundaries. Major record labels Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group filed lawsuits against AI companies, Suno and Udio, for allegedly training their systems using recordings without permission.

Suno acknowledged in legal filings that they trained their model on tens of millions of recordings available on the open Web, presumably including copyrighted recordings owned by major labels.

However, both Suno and Udio argue that such use was lawful under copyright's fair use doctrine, likening their machines to human musicians who played earlier songs to learn the building blocks of music.

Amidst a lack of clear regulations, the legal landscape remains murky.

To add to the confusion, independent artists have also filed lawsuits that largely depend on the U.S. Copyright Office report questioning whether AI training on copyrighted works qualifies as fair use, particularly for music generation.

Even the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the trade organization that represents the U.S. music industry, has sued Suno and Udio. Alleging that they trained their music-generation models on copyrighted material.

And while companies like Universal and Udio have agreed to settle their copyright infringement lawsuit, their love to team up on a new music creation and streaming platform, with licensing agreements that will provide revenue opportunities for artists and songwriters, suggests the industry is moving toward licensing frameworks rather than prohibition.

Another path is that of collaboration. ElevenLabs, an AI audio-generation platform, announced a new model that allows users to generate music, which it claims is cleared for commercial use.

However, while the legal battles rage on, lawmakers will have to move fast.

Platforms respond

In the UK, lawmakers are reconsidering an opt-out proposal that would have allowed AI companies to train on copyrighted works by default.

Music platforms, meanwhile, are under pressure to take responsibility. Spotify has promised a voluntary code asking artists to disclose AI use in their songs, but rivals like Deezer are pushing for mandatory labeling.

Even though there is no clear consensus on how AI-generated music should be labeled and handled, there is a silver lining in the mix.

Mixing genres

As AI music surges, creators strengthen fan ties, and platforms race to detect synthetic songs, hinting at a future split between human and AI-made music. Photo Credit: NYT.

Artists, though faced with shrinking traditional revenues, are building direct relationships with fans through platforms like Patreon, Bandcamp, and Ko-fi. This could very well create a parallel economy where AI will complement, rather than replace, human artists.

At the same time, a new detection arms race has begun. Deezer has filed patents for technology that can tell synthetic songs apart from real ones, though keeping pace with rapidly improving AI models remains difficult.

Its survey of listeners is also indicative of the idea that while AI-generated music may be cheaper to produce, it does not necessarily appeal to listeners.

If 45% of listeners are looking for filtering options, and 40% say they would skip AI-generated songs entirely, the music industry may split into two distinct markets.

As such, while AI can and is increasingly making progress on this stage. Whether or not listeners will groove to its beats will largely depend on whether it can connect with them.

In the meantime, artists will also have to find new ways to connect with their listeners, music then will have to be more than just charts and numbers, it will have to go back to the odd skipped beats that make a re-listen memorable.

Brain Snack (for Builders)

🍟 Use case clarity matters.

97% of people can’t tell AI songs apart from real ones, but 40% still say they’d skip them. Just because AI can do it doesn’t mean people want it. Builders: let this be your daily reminder that “impressive” isn’t the same as wanted.

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