![\"\"](\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/11114255\/SEI_195589583.jpg?width=1200\")
<\/div>Taylor Swift performing in Melbourne earlier this year<\/p>\n
Graham Denholm\/TAS24\/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n
A rogue artificial intelligence obsessed with Taylor Swift could supplant all recorded music with artificially generated cover versions by her, say researchers. History would show the American singer-songwriter as being responsible for everything from F\u00fcr Elise<\/em> to Paperback Writer<\/em>, leaving no evidence that Ludwig van Beethoven or The Beatles ever existed.<\/p>\n Nick Collins<\/a> at Durham University, UK, and Mick Grierson<\/a> at the University of the Arts London give the unusual warning in a paper that says humanity must think of methods of resistance \u201cnow, rather than when it is too late\u201d.<\/p>\n Thankfully, the risk of an AI Swiftpocalypse is low. Collins says that the idea is a thought experiment designed to prompt researchers to develop ways to protect all sorts of data \u2013 music, literature, scientific research and historical records \u2013 from being corrupted by AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n The pair lays out a future scenario where we rely on a handful of centralised stores of data: Spotify and Apple for music, for example. An AI could infiltrate those stores and corrupt, delete or alter the data within. This could be in a dramatic and obvious way or insidiously and gradually. \u201cWithin thousands of years it\u2019s really likely that there\u2019ll be at least some level of corruption and some level of conflict over the musical ground truth in audio recordings,\u201d Collins says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To make their point and show how AI can already manipulate data that it has access to, the researchers used current AI models to make Taylor Swift versions of songs including Queen\u2019s Bohemian Rhapsody<\/em>,\u00a0Frank Sinatra\u2019s I\u2019ve Got You Under My Skin<\/em> and The Beach Boys\u2019s\u00a0Wouldn\u2019t It Be Nice<\/em>. Generating these \u201cTaylor\u2019s Versions\u201d for all recorded music would currently require 1.67 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity at a cost of more than $266 million, they calculate \u2013 a price tag that Swift could afford herself.<\/p>\n Digital and physical backups can make us complacent about the safety and permanency of our data, says Collins, but an AI with the right motivation and capability could access and corrupt anything we have recorded. \u201cHowever much you try to preserve human culture, there may be threats in the future that you can\u2019t anticipate,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n But not all experts are convinced that AI represents a serious threat in this way. Sandra Wachter<\/a> at the University of Oxford says that AI has shown itself capable of causing great harm by replicating the sexist and racist biases of humans, but it isn\u2019t going to be capable of the sorts of feats described by Collins and Grierson.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think there is a serious problem of AI waking up, creating its own goals, having its own motivations and taking actions to fulfil those goals,\u201d she says. \u201cI think that\u2019s a nonsense argument and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s realistic. This is similar to asking me what would I do if aliens landed on this planet tomorrow. I see it as that unlikely.\u201d<\/p>\n Carissa V\u00e9liz<\/a>, also at the University of Oxford, says that there is a need for decisive action on AI, but it shouldn\u2019t be some dramatic \u201ckill switch\u201d to halt a malevolent model in its tracks. Instead, it should be a system of careful checks and balances to ensure the safety of the AI models.<\/p>\n \u201cThe debate seems to assume that there\u2019s this malevolent AI that somehow has desires of its own and becomes very powerful, and that we might want to switch it off,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd that seems to me so implausible and so ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n The real problem, she believes, is that we will integrate AI into so many aspects of our lives that we become utterly reliant on it, creating issues that are likely to be less apocalyptic in nature and yet still very damaging, including racist and sexist biases<\/a>\u00a0or simply making up plausible-sounding facts<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more we put it [AI] into products the harder it will be to turn it off. Not because it\u2019s this malevolent thing that has become so powerful that it takes over, but because we\u2019ve come to depend on it and it\u2019s very costly to turn off even when it\u2019s not working well,\u201d says V\u00e9liz.<\/p>\n