Premise one. I’m a nerd so I enjoy trying tools and artificial intelligence systems (from those for the generation of images to those for the interpretation of dreams).
Premise two. Artificial intelligence tools, including those used to verify whether content was generated by AI, they don’t always work very well. I know well.
Premise three. I am a lawyer and therefore, as you will understand, the premises were inevitable.
The week of began Sanremo Festival, the one in which the country stops and we talk (almost) only about what happens on the Ariston stage. Even online, or rather, especially online. The week in which Sanremo is politics, news, customs, culture, entertainment. Everyone talks about it, even those who don’t watch it.
Sanremo 2024 analysis on social media: record numbers for Annalisa, but more active followers for Amoroso and Mannoia by Emanuele Capone 01 February 2024
Since I am also interested in artificial intelligence for work (premise one), for some months I have been wondering if – in the first edition of the Festival after the boom in generative AI – some of the artists and authors would have used ChatGPT or other tool to write words and music for the competing songs.
So I thought that, as soon as the lyrics of the Sanremo pieces were published, I would check them with some of the tools used to make “detection”, that is, to recognize – always on a probabilistic basis – whether a content was generated by AI. These tools work by assigning a percentage to the content that corresponds to the probability that it was created generated via AI.
These are tools that are not always reliable (premise two) so I first decided to have ChatGPT (Gpt-4) create a Sanremo song in order to understand if the tools I would use were reliable.
For the record, the song I created thanks to AI is called “Echoes in the silence”.
The first two tools I used did not recognize the content as “AI generated” and then I moved on. The third, however, detected the text as written 85% by IA. Having verified that this tool worked, at least on “my” song, I tried it on all the Sanremo 2024 lyrics as published by TV Sorrisi e Canzoni.
The results were interesting: the majority of the songs turned out to be written by human beings (with percentages of 100% or very close to 100%).
Of the thirty songs in the competition, the tool worked for nine a percentage of generation using AI greater than 5%. Of these nine, based on the results of the tool, two appear almost certainly written by AI: one at 84% and the other at 90%. A significant result if I think that my “Echoes in the silence” was classified as coming from AI at 85%. I won’t say what the songs are, it’s not important. Even because tools may only be reliable up to a certain point (premise two).
What is important, however, is to understand that ChatGPT and the other generative AI tools have certainly arrived in Sanremo (and it could not have been otherwise); something similar will probably have happened with music. I’m sure someone will try this check too.
Besides, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. For the ancients it was the Muses who whispered in the ears of the writers (“Sing to me, oh diva, the wrath of hairy Achilles…”, was the prompt Homer gave to Calliope for the Iliad), today artists can count on new tools to support their creativity. The important thing is that they use it to create – in this case – songs capable of making us emotional, as well as to win the Festival.
However, precisely because there is nothing to be ashamed of, the use of AI must be transparent. This will be required in the near future by European legislation on artificial intelligence (the AI Act which will be published in a few weeks). This will be made possible, among other things, by watermarking technologies (which will help us defend ourselves from deepfakes). The very conditions of use of generative AI solutions ask for it.
For example, ChatGPT’s terms of use impose an obligation on the user to indicate that the content is generated by AI, so that everyone can know. This means that when I send the proposal for “Echoes in Silence” for the 2025 Festival I will have to write about Belisario E. (generated through GPT 4).
Therefore, if – and I underline if – any of the authors of Sanremo 2024 had used ChatGPT without indicating it, they would have violated the rules for the use of the service and would risk having their account closed and banned from OpenAI services.
But would it have also violated the rules? In the pages of the document (available on the Rai website and last updated on 29 January 2024) there are no specific indications on the use of artificial intelligence. The use of these tools would therefore seem permitted.
The regulation requires that the participating songs:
are new; have been designed and created in compliance with current legislation; do not violate the rights of third parties and that in relation to them the participants “have fulfilled all possible compensations, expenses and charges of any kind for any reason due to the subjects in any capacity involved in the creation of the literary text and the musical composition”.
Can companies that provide generative AI services be considered “subjects in any capacity involved in the creation of the literary text and musical composition”?
And in any case, those who use a generative AI solution know that the same prompt (“write a Sanremo song about unrequited love”) could lead to similar, if not identical, text.
How will the artistic direction behave if the use of AI systems is contested? It is likely that, since it is not prohibited, there would be no consequences. Just as it is likely that next year the regulation will make express reference to AIbut how?
Will there be a decision to completely ban the use of these systems (if this is even possible)? Will we choose to impose transparency, under penalty of exclusion? Or will a threshold of necessary human contribution be indicated?
In any case, this may be the last year that when the hosts announce the songs, they will cite the names of the authors without indicating the AI and the tools used by the humans participating in the Festival.