FOR FANS OF the reclusive R&B artist Frank Ocean, the short audio clips posted to group chat service Discord in early April were tantalizing. They purported to be leaked studio tracks from Ocean, who hasn’t released a full studio album since 2016 but has teased a forthcoming new project.
Ocean-obsessed music collectors offered to buy the tracks for thousands of dollars to get them before everyone else. There was only one problem: The tracks were fakes, created with a new kind of artificial intelligence that is sending shock waves through the music industry and raising thorny questions about ethics, copyright, and how artists can protect their personal brand.
These so-called musical deepfakes have exploded in number because in the past six months, the technology to make realistic imitations of someone’s voice has become widely accessible and inexpensive. This is a potential nightmare for
