A soul singer with 2,800,000 monthly listeners is giving the likes of Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter a run for their money.
However, there’s a startling truth behind her success.
Soul singer Sienna Rose is actually an AI artist and part of a growing number of so-called fake musicians infiltrating the music industry.
Despite technology previously treated with a sense of caution, many are now saying it threatens the very existence of musicians themselves.
While some artists have openly spoken about using AI as a tool for music production, many others have expressed their concerns that it could impact creativity and even block emerging artists from getting their big break.
That was also evidenced this week when popular soul singer Sienna, who can earn up to £2,000 a day on Spotify, was revealed to be completely fake.
In September last year, Sienna released her six-track EP Velvet Embrace, followed by two more projects and then her ‘debut album’ Honey on the Moon last month.
With 2.7million monthly listeners on Spotify, her quick success has been impressive, but she doesn’t actually exist.
Despite this, there’s been no indication on her artist page that she is computer-generated.
Metro understands that AI artists are permitted on the music streaming platform, but there are policies in place that penalise music being used in a ‘malicious way’.
A few months ago, it took action and removed a song titled I Run by Haven when it was uncovered the track had trained the vocals to mimic those of British singer Jorja Smith.
The platform takes the approach that it believes listeners should have the ability to choose what they want to listen to, but doesn’t actively promote AI acts over real-life artists.
However, Spotify does view AI as the latest development in ‘the evolution of music production’, much like the use of synthesisers in the 1980s and programmes like Garage Band in the noughties.
‘AI is a fast-moving shift for the entire music industry, and it’s not always possible to draw a simple line between AI and non-AI music,’ a spokesperson told us.
‘Spotify is focused on actions that guard against harmful AI use cases, including removing spam and deceptive content, strengthening enforcement against impersonation and unauthorised voice cloning, and supporting industry-standard AI disclosures in music credits.
‘Spotify does not create or own any music and does not promote or penalise tracks created using AI tools.’
But at the same time, the streaming service does pay the same amount to all artists – whether they be real people or not.
Although some artists, such as Timbaland and One Republic’s Ryan Tedder, have openly spoken about using AI in their work, many others see it as a disturbing development that also devalues their process.
Although AI artists aren’t flagged to users on Spotify, the French music streaming service Deezer has been actively detecting and tagging them before removing songs from algorithmic and editorial recommendations – the only streamer to do so.
Last year, the company did a study into the rise of AI music, discovering that a staggering 97% of listeners cannot tell the difference between AI and human-made music.
They also reported that 50,000 fully AI-generated tracks are being delivered to the platform per day, which is around 34% of their daily intake (that number has now dropped significantly since the launch of the AI detection tool).
Deezer’s head of research and development, Manuel Moussallam, said the company wanted to be transparent with customers, with a survey it did last year finding that 80% of respondents want AI music to be clearly labelled.
‘I think we should allow users to know if what they are listening to is from a real artist or AI and they can then make their own decision,’ he said.
‘But as a platform we have decisions to make on what content we want to push forward, so we decided that in cases when users are not actively monitoring, or unable to make an informed decision, we are going to remove the content. You won’t find it in our algorithm or our editorial playlists.
‘But you can find it if you actively look for it. Basically, we are transparent and give an informed choice to our consumers.’
Moussallam said Deezer had found that it didn’t actually have significant consumption on AI content though. ‘We’ve found that if you don’t actively promote this content, then it’s not organically consumed. Right now, it represents a tiny, tiny fraction of the streaming platform,’ he explained.
The company has also discovered that an ‘overwhelming’ amount of the fraudulent streams it monitored was linked to AI content.
Despite concerns in the industry about the use of AI, Moussallam said it was a valuable tool – but the problem was people simply using it to make money.
‘People have been using computers to make music for years, it’s not new. AI is just computer programs. I’m not so worried about music in itself – real artists will still create with it – but we are concerned about the actors who just want to make money out of it,’ he said.
‘Those people are trying to gain the system and divert the revenues of real artists, and this is the AI we want to concentrate on.
For Kev Nixon – a musician, songwriter, producer and manager with a career spanning 50 years, which has also seen him work with Madonna, Bryan Adams and Robert Plant – he is concerned AI is ‘taking over’ the music industry.
‘When you’ve been around as long as me, there’s been a lot of situations like this, but I don’t really see this as the danger everybody else does, because the music is brilliant,’ he said,
‘If you listen to Sienna Rose, those tracks are fantastic, and most people don’t care. They put on a playlist and hear a track and think “that’s nice”. They won’t care if it’s a real person or AI.’
However, he said there was a ‘definite problem’ in the fact AI acts are diverting much-needed funds away from emerging artists.
‘This is ripping off new artists by not giving them a chance and the system is now completely clogged up [with AI songs]. The chances of emerging artists getting their songs up on platforms and getting attention is almost nil…which is preventing them getting paid,’ he said.
‘The money Sienna has been paid should be going to a young girl whose just made her first record and that could change her life. That is a criminal thing to happen and unfortunately the music industry is responsible.’
Nixon said that there was ‘no motivation’ for new artists to try and crack into the music industry as the obstacles to finding success were now even greater.
Although he supports AI being utilised as a tool to assist in music production, Nixon is concerned by the fact that it’s now blocking actual artists out of the industry.
‘We’ve had technology assisting humans in creating music throughout my whole career. I don’t have any problem with that…but when the machine eliminates the artist, that is wrong and there should be a severe penalty to stop it happening. AI doesn’t need the musicians.’
‘There is no reason why AI can’t live beside the music industry, but at the moment it’s just taking over.’
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