Cher calls for artificial intelligence to be made illegal in the music industry

Cher wants artificial intelligence (AI) to be made illegal in the music industry.

The concern for AI ripping off the likeness of artists without fair compensation has been a growing concern in the last few months.

And the iconic singer is the latest to weigh in.

After hearing an AI-generated version of herself covering a Madonna song, Cher told AP: "Someone did me singing a Madonna song and it was kind of shocking.

"They didn't have it down perfectly.

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"But also, I've spent my entire life trying to be myself, and now these a******s are going to go take it? And they'll do my acting and they'll do my singing?

"And I mean, it's just… it's out of control."

The 77-year-old then added that she believes it should be outlawed.

"I'm telling you, if you work forever to become somebody - and I'm not talking about somebody in the famous, money part - but an artist and then someone just takes it from you, it seems like it should be illegal," she said.

Stephen Fry also spoke out after his voice was stolen from the Harry Potter audiobooks and replicated by AI.

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The 66-year-old began to talk about the SAG-AFTRA actors and writers’ strike while appearing at the CogX Festival in London, as per Forbes.

The author proceeded to play a small clip of an AI system replicating his voice for a new documentary.

“I said not one word of that—it was a machine. Yes, it shocked me,” he said.

“They used my reading of the seven volumes of the Harry Potter books, and from that dataset an AI of my voice was created, and it made that new narration."

Fry added he never consented for the technology to mimic his voice, and once he sent it to his agents, they went ‘ballistic’.

The broadcaster warned that ‘this is just the beginning’.

“It won’t be long until full deepfake videos are just as convincing,” he added.

“What we have now is not what will be. When it comes to AI models, what we have now will advance at a faster rate than any technology we have ever seen. One thing we can all agree on: It’s a f**king weird time to be alive."

The future is scary, people.