Grimes Tells Fans To Deepfake Drake Her, Invites Collaboration With AI

In the wake of the AI-generated hit Heart on My Sleeve going viral with deepfakes of Drake and The Weeknd, pop star Grimes has invited her fans to experiment with her voice.

On Sunday night she tweeted, “I’ll split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses my voice. Same deal as I would with any artist i collab with. Feel free to use my voice without penalty. I have no label and no legal bindings.”

She then added that she was open to anything anyone wants. “Im just curious what even happens and interested in being a Guinea pig,” She said she likes the idea of open sourcing art and killing copyright.

Her position is in sharp contrast to that of Universal Music Group which moved swiftly to get Heart on My Sleeve taken down across social media as well as music services Spotify, Tidal and Apple Music.

“UMG’s success has been, in part, due to embracing new technology and putting it to work for our artists–as we have been doing with our own innovation around AI for some time already,” the company said. “With that said, however, the training of generative AI using our artists’ music (which represents both a breach of our agreements and a violation of copyright law) as well as the availability of infringing content created with generative AI on DSPs, begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or on the side of deep fakes, fraud and denying artists their due compensation. These instances demonstrate why platforms have a fundamental legal and ethical responsibility to prevent the use of their services in ways that harm artists. We’re encouraged by the engagement of our platform partners on these issues–as they recognize they need to be part of the solution,” said the UMG in a statement shared with Variety.

Facing the inevitable

Grimes has long embraced AI as a techno artist. In 2020, her first album to top the Billboard charts was Miss Anthropocene, named for the post-Industrial Revolution period when rapid advancements in technology began to take its toll on Earth’s climate and ecology.

It was also in 2020 that she and SpaceX founder Elon Musk named their first child X Æ A-12 for the Elven spelling of AI. She then teamed up with the algorithmic mood music startup Endel to create an AI-generated lullaby.

“Everyday I thank the overlords of Ableton for cleaning up my tracks, but I do worry though that AI will outpace us and make musicians obsolete. It’s inevitable,” she warned at Web Summit that year.

With millions of followers across YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, her call for AI collaboration could be a game changer with her discography including hits like Oblivion, Kill V. Maim and Go which she wrote for Rihanna.

Deepfakes are wildly popular on TikTok. DeepTomCruise posts videos of the fake actor mixing it up with a fake Paris Hilton. And there is even a bot called Forever Voices on Telegram which trains AI to copy the speech and tone of celebrities like Taylor Swift and let fans chat with it via the ChatGPT API.