Sydney-based music services agency Good Intent has taken to social media to issue an apology after being accused of booking an AI artist for one of its events.
The initial claims were made by Aidan Sammut, who performed as part of a Wednesday (July 1st) line-up at Bootleggers Newtown with Genevieve Brouillard, and stated that “the artist that played before us was AI-generated”.
“The artists do not have control over the line-up,” Sammut continued, noting the bill had been put together by Good Intent. “At no point was it disclosed to us that we would be playing with an AI artist.
“In fact, we only found out because a member of another band had happened to go through their Instagram account. The account contains AI-generated visuals over what I'm fairly certain is AI-generated music, lyrics, and vocals. Worse still, there was no disclosure on any of the event's promotional material that it contained an artist that was AI-generated.”
Sammut continued:
As a musician, it is a complete insult to be put on a line-up with someone who uses technology that can only exist because of the large-scale theft of the work of my other fellow human musicians. I don't know if Good Intent was aware that this was an AI-generated artist when they booked them. If they weren't, then whoever is booking for them needs to do a little bit more research as, I mean, just look at the account.
It's fairly obvious what's going on here. If they were aware, then I'm gonna find it very hard to justify paying to attend one of their events in the future knowing that there may be an AI artist on the line-up. As streaming platforms become increasingly inundated with AI slop, live music must be defended as an avenue for human creative expression.
There is no place for generative AI slop in the live music scene. The appeal of live performance is that it is raw, it is passionate, and that it is human. AI music delivers none of this, while robbing the opportunity to do so from genuinely talented human musicians who can. As this becomes more commonplace, venues are going to need to work harder to protect the very human artists that have kept patrons coming through their doors before the scene that keeps them alive dies off entirely.
The evening’s line-up consisted of four acts, including The Duke Of Randwick and Pillar Lane, with the artist Sammut was calling out being Afro Charles.
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According to Afro Charles’ Spotify biography, they are a “Sydney based pop music band made up of 3. Afro Charles, Mei Ling and Damian Amamoo. Afro Charles is a male, virtual avatar of Damian. Mei Ling is a female virtual avatar who sings alongside Afro Charles. Damian is the lyricist, vocals (live performances) and producer.”
Questions have since arisen as to how an artist which is said to be AI performs live, which is something Afro Charles directly address in their bio.
“Damian will sing and perform the band's songs live on stage adding his vocals to Afro's and Mei Ling's vocals,” their bio reads. “In time, the band will have other performers live on stage, playing orchestral instruments that appear in our songs like the saxophone, cello, violin and others.”
In response to the backlash, Rob Carroll, Good Intent’s founder and director – and the booker of Bootleggers’ Mixed Bag event – took to Instagram to issue a statement to “take full responsibility” for the booking of the artist.
“I didn’t look at this particular artist’s socials, and their representatives' communication used wording consistent with genuine artists,” Carroll admitted. “Their representative described them to us as a ‘producer’ who used ‘live vocals’ in their sets. This person was booked through an agency, who presented themselves as professional.
“I hadn’t seen them live, but now looking at their socials - their content is clearly and blatantly AI.”
Carroll continued:
Artists are compensated for their work at Mixed Bag by selling tickets using a unique code, 100% of the ticket sale revenue generated by each artist goes directly to the artist. Good Intent and Bootleggers have never knowingly, and will never, book people who use AI to generate music.
For those who don’t know us, Good Intent is passionate about supporting and doing the right thing by real artists. We run a yearly initiative called GREATER GOOD. Likewise Bootleggers has long been a place where new and emerging artists play their first shows, develop their skills, and connect with their audience.
We’ll ensure we review our vetting processes moving forward, we’d never want to be placed in a position where we’re encouraging the use of AI, and financially supporting the theft from artists on which AI is trained.
In closing the post, Caroll explained that both Bootleggers and Good Intent will be making a donation to Support Act to “put their money where our mouth is”.
“Apologies, and thanks for bringing it to our attention,” they added. “We’ll make sure to do better.
“We don’t support AI, we support genuine artists.”
Notably, this incident occurred on the very same day that numerous musicians descended upon Parliament House in Canberra as part of a push for tighter copyright protections for artists in the face of increasing AI ubiquity and growing concerns over musicians’ work being used to train AI models without explicit consent.
