AI and Art

Abstract

This case study examines the ethical and economic dilemmas raised by AudioIn, a music streaming platform that quietly integrated AI-generated music into its catalogue to reduce royalty payouts and maximize profits. Drawing on nearly two decades of user behavior and music data, AudioIn’s AI team created music in the style of real human artists, assigning the outputs fake artist names, song titles, and album covers. While customers unknowingly embraced the AI-generated tracks, human musicians faced declining revenues and visibility. Eventually, the deception was uncovered, leading to user backlash and lawsuits from both musicians and listeners. This case raises profound questions about the legitimacy of machine-created art, transparency in platform governance, and the power asymmetry between tech firms and content creators. It challenges us to ask whether creativity is a uniquely human domain or a transferable function of algorithmic processing, and whether training machines on human creativity without consent undermines fairness, trust, and artistic labor. The AudioIn case reflects broader tensions in the AI economy, where convenience, automation, and profit often outpace ethical clarity.