When AI-Generated Artists Start Topping the Charts, Who Gets the Royalties?

By Futurist Thomas Frey

The Billboard Revolution Nobody Planned For

For four consecutive weeks, at least one AI-generated “artist” has appeared on the Billboard charts. Not AI-assisted human musicians. Not producers using AI as a tool. Actual AI-generated entities creating music that millions of people are choosing to stream, download, and add to their playlists.

Let that sink in for a moment. We’ve crossed a threshold most people didn’t even know existed. Generative AI has moved from impressive parlor trick to commercial reality so quickly that our legal systems, credentialing frameworks, and fundamental assumptions about creativity haven’t caught up. And the implications stretch far beyond the music industry into questions about education, expertise, intellectual property, and what it means to be an artist in 2030.

Continue reading… “When AI-Generated Artists Start Topping the Charts, Who Gets the Royalties?”

Will the next Mozart be a robot?

Mozart today 8gf6

Humankind has done a great deal in terms of making exquisite art, whether through its paintings, songs, or performance art. Museums are packed with such work, and ordinary people have libraries full of fantastic literary achievements—both physical and digital. For the longest time, creativity seemed like an exclusively human forte.

Continue reading… “Will the next Mozart be a robot?”