Singaporean singer Stefanie Sun would probably never have imagined that she would bask in the limelight again in this manner. The sudden revival of interest in Sun, who hasn’t released an album since 2017, comes not from the artist having another moment of genius.

Her voice is the centerpiece of a series of music videos generating a buzz on Bilibili.com, a Gen-Z-dominated Chinese video platform, recently. But she hasn"t sung these songs. They were generated entirely by artificial intelligence software.

Such videos are generated by so-vits-svc fork, an open source software developed on GitHub that enables anyone to train their own AI model to speak in any voice and language.

【資料圖】

One of the uploader has garnered millions of views on the few AI-generated videos he posted. Many left comments saying they were astonished by the fidelity of Sun"s voice generated by AI.

With Sun"s distinctive voice and the way she articulates while singing, her voice has a grainy quality and a unique breath. These qualities somehow matched the AI model, which is probably why videos using Sun"s voice have gained the most views.

In addition to generating Sun"s voice, the software has also replicated the voices of other famous singers including pop diva Faye Wong and Singapore"s JJ Lin.

Meanwhile, on the social media platform Weibo, the hashtag “I didn’t expect that the first jobless person after AI came out was Stefanie Sun” garnered a whopping 4.32 million views, and another hashtag entitled “Expert detailed explanation for why AI Sun is infringement” amassed a staggering 4.46 million views. Many netizens discussed the potential benefits and legal drawbacks of AI-generated music.

Fans in reminiscence

Sun is no stranger to Chinese audiences. Rising to fame in the early 2000s with her hit albums, she quickly became one of the most popular singers in China. Her unique voice, coupled with her charming personality, won the hearts of millions of fans across the Chinese-speaking world.

Despite her popularity, Sun has not held any live concert in China since her last appearance at the end of 2019. This has left many fans feeling disappointed, especially given the fact that though she had not released any new albums since 2017, several singles have been released over the years.

During the pandemic, Sun hosted several online concerts. A one-hour online concert in 2022 orchestrated by Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, saw more than 240 million viewers. Though Sun last week appeared at a music festival in Central China"s Changsha, fans are far from satisfied as she only sang a couple of songs.

Reminiscing on the golden age of Mandarin pop music, tech-savvy Chinese internet users took the liberty of mimicking Sun’s voice using singing voice conversion, a deep learning method that lets a user deliver one person’s singing in another person’s voice, and swap it into a compilation of Mandarin pop classics.

A search for “AI孫燕姿” (“AI Stefanie Sun”) yields hundreds of videos on Bilibili uploaded within the last month. The most popular ones have amassed over one million views. WeChat Index, which tracks keywords across the super app’s social and content ecosystem, shows that the term’s trending score skyrocketed to 50,000 on May 5 from zero just two days before.

One of them, a video of Fa Ru Xue, or "Hair Like Snow", in which Sun"s voice was digitally inserted in place of the original Chinese singer, Jay Chou, or "Rainy Day" by music group Nan Quan Mama - both of which have over 1 million views on the platform since it was posted on April 14, and resulted in some surreal experiences for music fans.

Generative AI has found adoption in helping to fill people’s emotional void, whether it’s used for remembering deceased loved ones or, in deepfake Sun’s case, addressing the dearth of good Mandopop today. As one AI product manager tweeted: “It’s like Sun’s fans have suddenly entered the festival mode.”

AI singers seemed to spring up, almost overnight. How did they come along suddenly?

In fact, deepfake singing has captivated audiences in the West just a bit earlier than AI Stefanie Sun became popular. The first sign of trouble came in February, when DJ David Guetta announced that the sample of Eminem’s voice he’d played during a recent live set had been created with AI. In March, the electronic hip-hop duo AllttA shared the track “Savages,” in which a human rapper trades verses with an AI Jay-Z.

And then, most famously, in early April, an anonymous producer released an original song called “Heart on My Sleeve” featuring AI vocals modeled on those of Drake and the Weeknd. “Heart on My Sleeve” was streamed by tens of millions of people, some of whom noted that they liked it better than recent singles by the actual Drake and Weeknd.

TikTok and YouTube are now flooded with music by AI clones, including covers of “Get Lucky,” by AI Michael Jackson, “Party in the U.S.A.,” by AI Ariana Grande, “Song 2,” by AI Kurt Cobain, and “Kill Bill,” by AI Rihanna.

The software that makes this possible is called SoftVC VITS Singing Voice Conversion, or So-Vits-SVC. It’s free, open source, and can run locally on any computer with a decent GPU. When it launched in March, it was buggy and required coding ability to use, but it’s been getting easier as updated versions arrive almost daily. If you just want to create a simple cover song, there are now websites that automate most of the process.

Two months ago, AI voice-cloning technology barely existed. Now it’s forcing the music industry to consider such tricky questions as whether pop stars own the sounds produced by their own larynges and if we even need flesh-and-blood pop stars at all anymore.

Fake singing, which was already rampant, becomes even harder to detect, the threshold for singers" profession becomes lower, and copyright infringements regarding a singer"s voice become more frequent.

AI singers for good cause?

While many viewers were shocked by the AI-generated songs, commenting that it is too difficult to distinguish their idols" voices from the AI versions, with some embracing a technology that provides people with a different way to enjoy their favorite music.

By restoring the voices of deceased singers such as Teresa Teng, Leslie Cheung, and Michael Jackson, audiences can mourn them. For example, to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of Teresa Teng"s death, the Japanese program "Kin SMA" used holographic projection technology to "resurrect" the late Chinese singer, providing comfort to their fans and loved ones.

Some musicians hold an open attitude towards "AI cloning.” Canadian singer Grimes openly welcomes people using AI to imitate her voice for creative purposes, saying creators are free to use her voice without penalty and she will split royalties derived from any successful recordings with them.

Chinese Taiwanese crooner Sandee Chan revealed on social media last month that her new song "Teach Me How to Be Your Lover," released on March 14, was actually sung by "AI Sandee Chan".

The news shocked the music industry because no one had noticed it before. In fact, some fans even commented that Chan"s voice seemed to have "regained her youth," and her singing level in the number was better than her recent performances.

A well-trained "AI singer" can deceive the vast majority of people. Chan later revealed her intention, saying that she had hoped the song could make people who care about creativity think.

If the AI era is inevitable, then maybe creators should not care more about "whether we will be replaced," but "what else we can do," she pointed out.

Possible copyright infringement

As ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed by Open-AI, takes the technology world by storm, AI-related products and services have rapidly grown. While they have improved the efficiency of people"s lives and work, they have also created new problems.

Legal professionals have expressed concerns about the possibility of rights infringements. AI-generated songs allegedly infringe upon the copyright of singers, lyricists and composers, even as some AI zealots argue that they play the songs for free just for fun.

It"s hard for the producers of AI-generated songs to explain that they didn"t make the songs for profit, because uploading the videos on such a big streaming platform can legally be deemed as business behavior.

Lawyers said using AI to simulate a singer"s voice without permission, and then mass-sharing it, meets the definition of infringement according to the Chinese Copyright Law. The AI-generated songs may even be considered as trademark infringement, if a singer successfully registers a trademark through his or her unique or recognizable voice.

Moreover, music videos featuring AI-generated voices may also have infringed on the names, portraits and voice rights of those singers. Using celebrities" names and imitating their voices through AI could also create unfair competition, because the act could mislead audiences and confuse the public.

Douyin is the quickest to address the legal implications of the explosion of AI content. The ByteDance-own company published last week a guideline on AI-generated content, which is largely based on China’s new synthetic technology regulation.

Content uploaders should mark AI-generated content with “distinguishing labels” and are responsible for the “consequences” of such content, the short video platform’s guideline reads. Any content that infringes on copyrights is prohibited and subject to “severe punishment” once detected by the platform.

The question is, then, whether songs made with tools that mimic singers’ voices without their consent violate the artists’ rights. Sun hasn’t publicly responded to the dozens of songs created using her AI voice.

Last November, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued regulations on the management of deep synthesis in internet information services. These regulations make institutional arrangements to regulate the application of deep synthesis technology.

On April 11, the CAC released the draft Administrative Measures for Generative AI Services to solicit public opinion. This is undoubtedly a meaningful start for promoting the healthy development and standardized application of the generative AI technologies.

The 21-article draft clarified that the country supports innovation, promotion, use and international cooperation on AI, but underscored that actions will be taken if AI-generated products, including texts, images, voices and videos, are found to have infringed on people"s images, reputations, privacy or business secrets.

After the draft regulations are finalized and implemented, they will help better define the rights and interests, as well as liabilities and obligations, of the AI platform companies and the original intellectual property rights owners of the songs, pictures, films, literature works and other intellectual products from which the AI companies can seek profits through “re-creation”.

一夜之間，“AI孫燕姿”爆火出圈。

如果問華語樂壇近期產量最高的歌手是誰，“AI孫燕姿”一定榜上有名。目前，在B站與“AI孫燕姿”相關的視頻已經有了上千條，翻唱類型包括民歌、童謠、動漫主題曲、流行歌曲等等，其中翻唱的《發(fā)如雪》《下雨天》都超過100萬，《半島鐵盒》《愛在西元前》等播放量也超過了60萬，還有其他的翻唱歌曲也都有著可觀的播放量。

據了解，“UP主”子魚（化名），雖然至今只做了4個“AI孫燕姿”的音頻，但總播放數已經超過了150萬次。其中僅《下雨天》單曲就超過了100萬次，收藏人數接近2萬人。他表示，用模型去替換掉原本歌曲的干聲即可合成歌曲，好似柯南脖子上的“蝴蝶結變聲器”，熟手的話，整個操作過程不超過2小時。在搜索引擎里輸入“AI歌手”、”聲音克隆“等關鍵詞，很容易就能找到相關的視頻教程或是文字教程。

據了解，“AI孫燕姿”是通過AI技術提取歌手孫燕姿的音色，然后再翻唱其他歌曲。這種“音色轉換”的技術，需要提前“準備數據集”，需要準備很多首歌手孫燕姿的高品質曲目，還有她平時的一些采訪、直播等視頻素材——質量越高、數量越多效果就越好。之后，通過“去除呼吸聲”等細節(jié)處理，以及一系列復雜的“訓練”，即可得到自己的“AI孫燕姿”。

“技術門檻”的降低，讓各大平臺上紛紛涌現出“AI王心凌”、“AI周杰倫”的翻唱作品。網友評價：本人未曾開口，輕而易舉地“占據”華語樂壇半壁江山。

不過，目前各種AI翻唱視頻的播放量都不如“AI孫燕姿”。為什么孫燕姿的聲音被AI仿出了歡迎度？

B站的一位創(chuàng)作者回應網友稱，他也嘗試了周杰倫、林俊杰、王菲等歌手的音色轉換，但效果不如孫燕姿的好，他認為這位小天后的聲音“顆粒感清晰，音色百搭，有特點”，因此翻唱其他歌曲也更合適。

有人說，2003年大火的歌手是孫燕姿，2023年爆火的歌聲是“AI孫燕姿”。孫燕姿的最大對手，可能是20年前自己的嗓音。

對于那些一直期待看到孫燕姿現場演出但卻一直沒有機會的粉絲們來說，AI技術成了他們的救星。他們自己動手使用AI生成他們想聽的歌曲，有些歌曲甚至是孫燕姿本人從未唱過的。當然，現在的AI技術雖然只能模仿音色，無法完全還原孫燕姿所有的唱法技巧，但至少能夠復刻她的嗓音，為歌迷們提供了足夠的二創(chuàng)空間。

AI歌手集體出道

AI歌手如今看似大行其道，但并非今時今日才出現的新事物，而是能夠追溯到AI驅動型虛擬偶像的誕生。2007年，虛擬偶像鼻祖初音未來便是以電子語音合成軟件VOCALOID2引擎為基礎，采用了聲優(yōu)藤田的聲源，五年后，國內第一位中文虛擬偶像洛天依的聲音最初基于VOCALOID3引擎合成，復制了初音未來的運營模式。

而現在流行的AI音色替換軟件，則實現了“高仿版?zhèn)€人專屬演唱會”。尤其是在今年演唱會票價高昂且秒光，市場供需不匹配的情況下，在有意識的推波助瀾下，粉絲、上傳者完成了一場“共謀”與狂歡。令粉絲激動的除了對新技術的好奇，天王天后的“跨界碰撞”，還有對帶有情懷濾鏡的偶像許久不發(fā)新歌的“代償”心理。

在海外，AI歌手真正爆火是在上個月。由AI模仿知名歌手Drake的《Heart on My Sleeve》一度被上傳到各大音樂平臺，歌曲在TikTok上點擊量超過1500萬次，在流媒體音樂平臺Spotify上的播放量超過60萬。

這是一個名叫Ghostwriter997的創(chuàng)作者發(fā)布的，創(chuàng)作風格和聲音來自Drake和The Weeknd。很快，這首歌引起了Drake和The Weeknd所屬的唱片公司環(huán)球音樂集團的注意，該公司的副總裁James Murtagh-Hopkins發(fā)表聲明，“使用我們旗下藝人的聲音進行訓練進而生成內容，這既違反了我們的協議，也違反了版權法。”

在環(huán)球音樂的投訴下，被AI仿聲演唱的《Heart on My Sleeve》相繼從Spotify、Apple Music、YouTube、Amazon Music等各大平臺下架。除此之外，環(huán)球音樂集團還要求Spotify等音樂流媒體平臺切斷AI公司對其內部音樂的訪問權限，防止開發(fā)人員利用版權音樂訓練AI模型。

隨著“AI孫燕姿”的躥紅，“AI王心凌”、“AI周杰倫”也出現在B站。AI翻唱的出現與仿聲應用比以前更優(yōu)質、更易上手有關。如果你在網上檢索“AI翻唱”、“聲音克隆”等關鍵詞，教程一抓一大把，大部分教程中提到了一個采用音色轉換算法的開源AI項目So-VITS-SVC。

同AI作畫以畫家作品訓練AI模仿其畫風的原理一樣，“喂”給AI更多的歌手公開音頻資料，便能夠得到更準確的訓練結果，使之在音色模仿方面達到八成以上的相似度。

使用該聲音訓練模型，制作一首AI翻唱曲目只需三步：使用某些音頻軟件分離歌曲中的伴奏與人聲，將人聲音頻拆分成5秒-15秒的小段；然后利用處理干聲文件通過So-VITS-SVC中的程序訓練目標音色模型；最后，用該模型對目標轉換文件進行推理預測，就得能得到AI翻唱的歌曲。有跟著教程學習過的網友稱，即使是個新手，學幾個小時后也能制作出和原歌手有三五分相似度的AI翻唱歌曲。

平臺也為這些UP主大開方便之門，4月28日至6月24日，B站音樂區(qū)推出“虛擬之聲創(chuàng)作計劃”，UP主可選擇話題“AI虛擬之聲實驗室”投稿，平臺將給予優(yōu)質稿件提供流量扶持和活動獎勵。目前，該活動已經有1億瀏覽，超34萬次討論。

但在B站“AI歌手”爆火之后，Sovits開發(fā)者Rcell很快發(fā)布緊急公告稱，由于最近在B站等平臺出現了眾多使用svc (包括Sovits,diff-svc等)和未授權數據集訓練明星、知名藝人、知名公眾人物的模型，且這些作品在平臺流量高，并且引起敏感性話題。為避免引起更嚴重的法律問題，Sovits倉庫已經刪除。

是福是禍？

在長沙音樂節(jié)上，孫燕姿被粉絲問到了關于”AI孫燕姿”的事情，她只是笑笑表示：“有聽過此事”。經紀公司也說：“目前并沒有委請律師處理。”

通過模型訓練和后期處理，讓AI用孫燕姿的聲音翻唱其他歌手的歌曲。這樣的行為究竟是一種新技術勃發(fā)后，創(chuàng)作者們搏粉絲一笑的創(chuàng)意行為，還是用技術圈錢，實則侵犯了歌手“聲音權”的侵權行為，對此網絡上議論紛紜。這一波勢不可擋的AI浪潮，究竟該以怎樣的姿態(tài)面對？

有律師指出，首先，“AI孫燕姿”借用了歌手孫燕姿的名字。根據法律規(guī)定，公民姓名權作為重要的人格權，受到法律的嚴格保護。如果未經孫燕姿本人允許，使用“AI孫燕姿”為人工智能歌手冠名，顯然侵犯了對方的姓名權，損害了對方的商譽。其次，如果“AI孫燕姿”沒有得到許可而去翻唱，將可能構成對他人著作權的侵犯。比如“AI孫燕姿”翻唱的《下雨天》《發(fā)如雪》在B站點擊量破百萬，帶來不菲的流量利益，已然有侵權之嫌。除了創(chuàng)作者，如果平臺推薦AI歌曲或將AI歌曲放進排行榜，平臺就有標注義務，告知訪問者，這樣可以避免混淆。

雖然部分創(chuàng)作者極力解釋自己只是興趣使然，并未商用獲取收益，但其實際行為也已構成侵權。

有法律專家表示，AI翻唱主要是一些歌手聲音的再現，會涉及對原創(chuàng)（歌手）聲音的模仿，這種情況下往往會涉及表演者對聲音所享有的相應權利。另外，通常判斷構成侵權行為的方式，并不是以點擊量或者是有償無償的方式判斷，所以即使不以營利為目的，AI翻唱作品依舊屬于侵權。

對于版權問題，歌手格萊姆斯，她就公開表示過“很樂意大家使用她的聲音”。但她不是沒有條件的，她的要求是要分50%的版稅。處在AI大爆發(fā)的今天，一定還會有更多眼花繚亂的應用給法律、監(jiān)管甚至倫理出難題。如何平衡監(jiān)管與創(chuàng)新，顯然還需要在具體實踐中不斷摸索。

另外，技術本身沒有善惡，關鍵要看使用者的意圖一樣。有網友提出，AI技術可以還原鄧麗君、張國榮這些已故歌手的聲音，讓聽眾們得以緬懷，完成偶像的“數字永生”。AI歌手的爆火，某種程度上意味著歌手的音色獲得了永生。哪怕只是模仿音色，也足夠讓人興奮了。

但也需要提防，AI濫用引發(fā)偽造聲音詐騙等違法犯罪行為。所以，“AI歌手”的出現既有可能更好為公眾服務，也有可能成為犯罪者的幫兇，其核心還是要看使用者的抉擇。

如果說AI歌手目前尚處在自娛自樂的階段，而陳珊妮則主動擁抱了“歌手AI”。今年3月，歌手陳珊妮在社交平臺宣布，她于3月14日發(fā)布的新歌《教我如何做你的愛人》是自己的AI模型演唱的，封面也由AI生成。她“調教”了一年，發(fā)音呼吸，和聲都是全AI完成。評論區(qū)里，有人感嘆，“難怪覺得公主的vocal回春了，原來是AI唱的。”

在她看來，如果AI的時代必將到來，身為創(chuàng)作人該在意的或許不是“我們是否會被取代”，而是“我們還可以做些什么”，她的實驗證明了制作人是音樂創(chuàng)作中的核心環(huán)節(jié)。

動了誰的蛋糕？

站在歌手背后的音樂公司，觀感就更復雜了，AI歌手直接動了他們“蛋糕”。

在國外，AI抵制者則已經開始采取手段維護自己的權益。去年，美國唱片業(yè)協會向美國政府提交了一份AI開發(fā)者的名單，聲稱它們抓取受版權保護的作品來訓練模型的行為是“未經授權使用的，侵犯了我們會員的權利”。

環(huán)球唱片執(zhí)行副總裁邁克爾·納什（Michael Nash）更是在一篇專欄文章中直言，人工智能音樂正在稀釋市場，使原創(chuàng)作品更難找到，并侵犯了藝術家獲得作品報酬的合法權利。

3月16日，美國唱片業(yè)協會等30多個社會團體，還共同發(fā)起了“人類藝術運動”，以保證AI不會取代或“侵蝕”人類文化和藝術。

事實上，針對人工智能技術的監(jiān)管也一直在推進。4月11日，國家互聯網信息辦公室發(fā)布《生成式人工智能服務管理辦法（征求意見稿）》，對隱私、知識產權、訓練數據、不公平競爭等設立了“藩籬”，重點是訓練數據要合法，不得侵犯知識產權，AI工具提供者應承擔生成內容生產者的責任。由此可見，不久后或將迎來AI技術管理辦法的正式公布。

5月9日，抖音平臺發(fā)布了一則針對人工智能生成內容的倡議，禁止利用生成式人工智能技術創(chuàng)作、發(fā)布侵權內容，包括但不限于肖像權、知識產權等，一經發(fā)現將嚴格處罰；此外還要求發(fā)布者對人工智能生成內容進行顯著標識，加上統一的官方“水印”。而針對純AI驅動型主播，平臺提到：“使用已注冊的虛擬人形象進行直播時，必須由真人驅動進行實時互動，不允許完全由AI驅動進行互動。”這意味著真人驅動型虛擬主播被允許，而純AI驅動型主播則被封殺。

繼AI繪圖、ChatGΡT，打工人焦慮不斷，現在輪到了歌手。但越是科技浪潮滾滾而來，人類越是需要保持清醒：“人”才是作品的核心。AI技術可以模擬出聲音，但是不能模擬出音樂的內涵和精神，只能作為一種工具或媒介。

孫燕姿從出道到現在23年，發(fā)行過14張專輯和若干單曲，估計約200首。也正是因為像她這樣的歌手出作品的周期長、數量少，讓歌迷一直苦苦等待她的新歌，才使得“AI歌手”有了市場，給了歌迷們“AI代餐”。

不過，如果以平均每天40多首的速度，一年就可以產生14000多首作品，10年就有14萬首，而數量的增多意味著作品將從“稀缺”變?yōu)椤俺渥恪鄙踔痢斑^剩”，到那時不知人們是否還會對歌手本人的作品抱有期待。

人類歌手或許不會馬上被AI取代，但放任AI歌手無序生長，滋生出的種種問題和潛在危機也會直接打擊創(chuàng)作者的創(chuàng)作積極性。有了規(guī)范有了倡議，才能更有利于人工智能產業(yè)的良性健康發(fā)展。在遵從科技倫理、人本主義、法治理念的基礎上，人工智能相關立法還需不斷完善，緊跟科技革命的步伐，讓大眾在AI這片新的疆土上自由馳騁時，不忘套上法律法規(guī)和倫理道德的韁繩。

Executive Editor: Sonia YU

Editor: LI Yanxia

Host: Stephanie LI

Writer: Stephanie LI

Sound Editor: Stephanie LI

Graphic Designer: ZHENG Wenjing, LIAO Yuanni

Produced by 21st Century Business Herald Dept. of Overseas News.

Presented by SFC

編委: 于曉娜

策劃、編輯：李艷霞

播音：李瑩亮

撰稿：李瑩亮

音頻制作：李瑩亮

設計：鄭文靜、廖苑妮

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