"What kind of song shall we make today?" On the afternoon of the 2nd, at an "AI Composition Class" held at an educational institution affiliated with SM Entertainment in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, composer Jang Hyo-jin asked what the students wanted to make into a song, and words like "flower," "love," and "trot" came out one by one from among the students. When Jang entered five keywords chosen by the students into an AI composition program, a song complete with accompaniment, lyrics, and vocals streamed out of the computer about three minutes later. As AI technology develops, controversies have continued for years over where to recognize AI creations as "creation." However, apart from such controversies, AI is rapidly establishing itself as a creative tool in the entertainment field. In the past, learning composition required playing an instrument or mastering music theory such as harmony. However, most of the dozen or so students at the educational institution affiliated with SM Entertainment visited by this publication had no professional music training. Most of them were people who came to learn music as a hobby.

The use of AI is also spreading in professional music education. Seoul Institute of the Arts had students create music using the generative AI music program SUNO in its "Basic Sound Design" class during the first semester of this year. Last year at Hallym University, a course proposal called "Understanding and Creation of Music in the AI Era" submitted by students won the grand prize at the "Student Participatory Liberal Arts Curriculum Development Contest." The students said in the contest proposal, "By composing songs utilizing AI tools, we can cultivate the ability to practically utilize AI technology." In fact, creations utilizing AI are pouring out regardless of the field. According to data submitted by the Copyright Commission of Korea to the office of People Power Party lawmaker Cho Eun-hee, the number of copyright registrations for content such as music, video, and books created using AI from January to August this year was 1,054. This is three times last year's total registration count (367).

In particular, the growth trend of AI music is steep. According to global music platform Deezer, as of last April, AI-generated music newly uploaded to the platform accounted for about 75,000 songs per day, or 44% of the total. This means that more than 2 million AI songs are newly uploaded in a month. At the beginning of last year, it was only around 10,000 songs a day, but it has increased more than 7fold in about a year. As AI creations surge, voices of concern are also emerging in the cultural sector. Under the current copyright law, human creative intervention is required to be recognized for copyright. The problem is that there are no clear criteria to objectively distinguish how much humans contributed to creation in music or videos made using AI. There is also criticism that AI may infringe on the copyrights of original creators in the process of learning vast creative works such as existing music or videos. Despite these controversies, the number of people enjoying AI creations is increasing. "Forest of the Heart," created using AI by music creator "Joseon Hip-hop," entered Melon's representative chart, the "Top 100," last month. "Did You Become the Adult You Dreamed Of?", sung by an AI vocalist, ranked 8th on Melon's Top 100 as of the 11th. Consumption of AI content is also spreading to video. In China, short-form dramas utilizing AI from scriptwriting and video generation to virtual actor implementation and voice dubbing are pouring out. According to China's National Radio and Television Administration, a broadcasting and internet regulatory body in China, a total of 430,000 short-form dramas were released in China from January to August this year. Among them, it is reported that more than 90% of the works utilized AI during the production process. Moon Hyung-nam, president of the Korea AI Education Association, said, "Because the content market is changing rapidly due to AI technology, institutional criteria must be established in a hurry, such as how far to recognize human creative contribution and how to protect the copyrights of existing original creators."

[ⓒ Global Economic Times. 무단전재-재배포 금지]