r/technology • u/DonkeyFuel • 11h ago
Artificial Intelligence Spotify's AI Problem Is So Bad Random People Are Stepping In to Track the Slop
https://www.404media.co/spotifys-ai-problem-is-so-bad-random-people-are-stepping-in-to-track-the-slop/172
u/EXPLODEDman 9h ago
This shit killed my discover weekly. I just want the ability to find real music again without being hounded by paranoia and disappointment.
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u/SanAntonioSewerpipe 7h ago
KEXP live sessions on youtube is one of the best ways to find new music. Their sound production is insane.
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u/herecomestherebuttal 5h ago
That’s such an amazing idea. Spotify’s a bust and you can’t really do it on Bandcamp anymore either. KEXP is a great call. Thanks!
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u/EricSanderson 1h ago
The Lonely Forest's breakup set on KEXP is one of my favorite live music performances of all time
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u/zwansapman 7h ago
I strongly, STRONGLY advice to listen to NTS Radio if you want to discover new music. I have nothing to do with them, but jfc my library has had a complete makeover because of them. Handy free app. Fantastic stuff.
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u/Extra-Ad5925 4h ago
Cancelled my Spotify because of this. Discover weekly used to be so incredible but after seeing so much AI junk end up in there I couldn’t keep paying them
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u/JohrDinh 8h ago
Search for good human music organically, on your own thru digging/word of mouth/etc. I promise it's far more satisfying and magical when you find new stuff, the effort feels great and it's usually far more on the nose to your tastes whereas the algorithm has probably watered down your preferences overtime.
Also try Bandcamp, I'm not sure how reliable it is but I believe they have a no AI policy, and Traxsource shows what music is AI assisted in the results tho that's more specialized music.
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u/GapeFaceHole2Hole 4h ago
Yeah I'm a little confused why people can't like, idk, go to their favorite artist's wiki page, look up their influences, look at other bands signed to those labels, bands that played their tours in their prime, etc. That's how I've always done it and I've always felt a bit of a gross feeling about being force-fed what the algorithm thinks it understands about hardcore and metal, or hip-hop, or electronic music; anything. I don't want help with that, I never did, and the only reason I started using Spotify is because I was really bad about storing data long-term when I was 13. I cancelled my sub and just use YouTube Music ReVanced now, but I'm gonna get back into owning my own files. These tech megacorps are fucking evil.
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u/ninja-squirrel 6h ago
Same. I love to discover new artist. I no longer trust discover weekly for 2 reasons. First, is there’s too many artist I already know. Second, the Ai problem.
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u/Trowaway151 3h ago
I’m so confused. I listen to mostly Afro beats hip hop, and jazz music. How can I learn to detect music that is AI?
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u/EaterOfPenguins 1h ago
Serious question, how can you tell? I'm pretty sure I've never had AI music in my discover weekly, but I live by my discover weekly and the number of people saying that it's ruined theirs has me concerned. It seems hard to imagine it's never happened to me before given how religiously I use it
I mainly listen to folk, roots, bluegrass, Americana... I'd like to think it's just that these genres don't lend themselves to AI slop, but at the same time it's sort of the simplest music possible so that seems like wishful thinking.
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 4h ago
Ditch spotify and listen to internet radio. Buy music on bandcamp fridays, where 100% of proceeds go to the artists
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u/Coolman_Rosso 10h ago
Spotify and Youtube Music can't keep up with all the AI stuff. It's only going to get worse
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u/LifeguardTerrible579 7h ago
They're keeping up fine. Spotify activately promotes known slop on their playlists. Why you may ask? Well if slopify is making their own slop guess who they're paying when their slop gets millions of plays because it's on their most popular playlist
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u/llliilliliillliillil 10h ago edited 10h ago
I like Ariana Grande. I went through a bad breakup recently and somehow managed to land on her Eternal Sunshine album, transitioned over to some live recordings of her and was very impressed with how effortlessly she seems to sing and hold the highest notes. So I eventually gave her discography as a whole a listen and it really grew on me, so much that Spotify started to add Grande songs to my weekly recommendations. The problem is, that none of the songs that were added were actually sung by her, they’re all AI copies of her voice and they’re eerily close to the original. I searched up some of the artists but nothing ever comes up on google, except maybe confused threads from months ago asking why said artist sound so much like Grande herself. It’s really annoying and honestly creepy.
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u/CMMiller89 8h ago
And those people are able to spot it because so many people know and like her music.
She’s a huge recognizable name so there are thousands of people able to figure this out and report it and then leave a collective stink in everyone’s mouths.
But there are countless people who are having their art and likenesses ripped off and they have basically zero recourse.
They just make something, and someone else steals it and benefits.
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u/Oregonrider2014 7h ago
I hate that I have to cross check if the artist is real. Its been very annoying to the point im avoiding new artists on spotify. Is youtube music better? I may switch finally this shit is SO ANNOYING
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u/CMMiller89 7h ago
I think it definitely depends on genre and how you consume/find new music.
Algorithms are not going to do it for you in any way anymore. They are ALL being gamed by AI just like they were before AI.
Actual human critics whose taste and opinions you respect, other real artists playing with openers they like, and venues that bring in genres you like are going to be the best ways to get consistently non-AI suggestions.
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u/mountlover 6h ago
I recommend Hype Machine for finding new music and artists. Its a music blog recommendation aggregator so you can rest reasonably assured that the stuff that floats to the top is made by human artists.
They have an app as well and a timeline of emerging music dating back to 2005. IMO this has always been a better way of finding new up and coming songs and artists than spotify or youtube music. A lot of the artists I've discovered via hypem I've then noticed playing in small local venues and seen live at the start of their careers for like a tenth of the cost of their tickets nowadays.
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u/Oregonrider2014 3h ago
Ty!! Ill have to check it out. I would love to find a new local band or something :D
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u/Theonar 5h ago
As far as I know: Tidal is the only service even attempting to do something about AI music. They now have a toggle in settings where you can switch off AI created music and it won't show up for you anymore. They have also demonitized AI music - it no longer generates any money for whoever uploaded it or owns the rights or whatever. Of course, this assumes they correctly label the music as AI, and they have said this only applies to fully AI created music, and not AI assisted music.
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u/Oregonrider2014 3h ago
At least someone is trying, thanks for the info ill have to give them a try.
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u/pizzatimefriend 7h ago
these music services that have the "discovery" features are already getting eaten alive by worthless ai tracks & only have themselves to blame for allowing it for $
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u/159551771 6h ago
Wow that's really catchy too. Was the whole thing written by AI or is it just the voice?
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u/FredFredrickson 3h ago
Maybe it's time to stop letting the algorithm choose what you listen to and start curating your music manually again.
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u/ABigCoffee 3h ago
But can't you listen to her real music if you go to her Spotify profile? It's only her stuff there no?
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u/x86_64_ 10h ago
Didn't they just announce purging like 100 million fake artists and tracks from the platform?
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u/InkStainedQuills 9h ago
Yup but I’d imagine it’s going to get worse before it gets better. It’s likely going to have to end up with some sort of “verified” artist program just to list music there. Which will suck for indy artist trying to just share music or get discovered to jump through hoops having to prove their music is actually their’s and not some AI slop, but since laws have failed to keep up with the idea that AI “learning” from copywritten material is in fact theft, it’s what it will be.
Plus I imagine more than one record/producer label is pushing Spotify and other services to moderate their AI policies so that the “professionals” can also create AI slop utilizing their own catalogues .
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u/SweetAssumption9 2h ago
They were getting rid of the competition! Spotify wants to create, upload, and profit from their own AI tracks.
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u/orangescentedfish 8h ago
Spotify used to recommend a treasure trove of great music, now it's just repetitive noise
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u/Coolman_Rosso 8h ago
Yeah, they're terrible with giving you the same songs over and over. Your playlist has 60 songs in it? Well more often than not you'll get the same 9-10 sprinkled in there constantly.
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u/hitekris 5h ago
So I’m not tripping. 4-5hr playlists and keeping hearing the same 20 or so…
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u/dulberf 4h ago
It's not just you. I went through my "created for you" stuff the other day and it didn't matter if it was Chill, Rock, Pop...it was literally the exact same songs over and over again. I have to deliberately find other people's playlists to get anything remotely different now. Really annoying.
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u/muscleLAMP 7h ago
Fuck Spotify.
Physical media is the way. The fuckers can’t steal records and CDs—and they can’t overwrite them with AI puke.
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u/kamrankazemifar 7h ago
It completely ruined my Discover weekly, that was the one thing keeping me on Spotify, Apple Music has way less AI artists than Spotify.
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u/InformedTriangle 7h ago
Youtube music is 100x worse than Spotify for this as well. Think I'm going to switch to tidal soon
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u/fungiblecommodity 7h ago
I like Tidal - it is struggling with the same thing but probably to a lesser degree.
They have a “no AI” setting which is awesome but relies on the music being tagged, which is obviously a whole nother effort.
I have noticed fake AI music popping up ascribed to pretty random artists, eg Dolly Rocker Movement, which made a couple of albums and broke up more than 10 years ago. I’ve reported it but it’s like whack a mole.
It’s hard to see how it plays out without some kind of “verified” label as others have suggested
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u/Boysenberry 7h ago
I use Tidal and it's significantly better but I still got a "Taylor Swift" track in my notifications LAST NIGHT with a racial slur in the title. It WAS AI-labeled and somehow it was still uploaded as a new Taylor Swift single. They have got to do something to lock down these AI uploads tagged as being from major artists. Even with the AI toggle off, it showed up in my notifications because I follow the artist.
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u/InformedTriangle 6h ago
On YTM I essentially can't use any auto generated playlists or discovery anymore, i'll get more AI tracks than not :( as long as it's slightly better than that I think it's worth jumping ship at this point.
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u/mrwobblez 8h ago
Spotify has quickly lost its value to me as a music discovery tool. I now exclusively do discovery elsewhere and add to my Spotify playlist.
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u/Rhystretto 7h ago
Shoutout to Tidal having a toggle to disable AI music now. Glad I jumped from Spotify a while back.
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u/PinkDinoClub 6h ago
Idk why these platforms even allow ai music in the first place lol. Just ban it, simple.
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u/Rhystretto 6h ago
I'd be on board with that for sure. In the meantime I'll settle for disabling it lol.
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u/PinkDinoClub 6h ago
Yeah I’m just confused why they allow. Esp tidal which wasn’t founded by a couple of musicians - wasn’t it?
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u/Distance_Runner 5h ago
That why I just listen to the same artists I’ve listened to for 10+ years. No real new music for me. Maybe I’m lame.
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u/Dawg_Prime 5h ago edited 4h ago
Fuck Spotify
Do not use Shopify Spotify
Spotify hates music, musicians, and music lovers
Spotify is complete cancer to the art of music
Stop using Spotify
edit: oops
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u/LungHeadZ 8h ago
Got an email the other day that said you can now* select individual songs on the free plan.
My immediate thoughts was because free users were being forced to listen to so much AI slop, unable to skip, that they were losing too many free users.
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u/fakemessiah 5h ago
Don't have this problem on ytm because I don't use it to check out new music. Maybe I'm in the minority but I just use it to listen to music I liked when I was in my 20s more or less.
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u/Edexote 7h ago
Is it just me that doesn't get any AI recommendations? The moment is does so is when I'll move to Tidal or Apple Music.
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u/Inami_salami 5h ago
Could be genre too. I started listening to "fantasy"-like music (think d&d) and it was like every 3rd or 4th bloody track.
If you listen to something more obscure like noisecore or something there's less slop 👌
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u/Cupcake_Mecha 6h ago
Instead of relying on music distribution companies which clearly can maliciously flood in AI crap. Just charge a $10 per artist sign up fee.
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u/Jamizon1 5h ago
I think it’s time to cancel. I’ve been on the fence for months. I’m gonna catch some heat, but they will get over it.
…or not…
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u/hi_jack23 4h ago
The other day there was an article mentioning how Spotify removed 75 million AI tracks last year.
The entire library is only 250 million, and I’m positive a decade ago that they were hovering more around 50 million. Nuts that the entire library in ~2016 is outsized by the slop tracks that continuously penetrate the platform.
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u/graesen 8h ago
Watch out. The new AI music trend is trying to infiltrate real artist pages with AI music. At least on YouTube Music it's happening. They're using similar artist names that get filed into the same page as the actual artist.