Latest / Mini Scroll / AI musician booked for a live gig | Streaming fraud on Spotify + dating app lures users with AI men

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AI musician booked for a live gig | Streaming fraud on Spotify + dating app lures users with AI men · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Coming up today on Mini Tech Scrolls, a Sydney based musician
• 0:03
  calls out an AI performer and who booked them, how Calci and
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  Spotify are rigging the charts and a gay dating app using AI
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  men to lure in users. Hey everyone and welcome to Mini
• 0:14
  Scroll. The daily Internet culture
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  podcast bring you the biggest stories from social media, the
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  creator economy and the digital space every Monday through
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  Thursday and sometimes Fridays. My name is Annabelle and I'm
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  your Wednesday Mini Tech Scroll host and also the deputy editor
• 0:28
  of Australian Youth Digital media brand Centennial World.
• 0:32
  Welcome back to Minitex Girl for another Wednesday.
• 0:35
  Before we get into the stories this week, I feel like I have to
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  note, I don't know if it sounds like it, but to me it sounds
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  like I'm losing my voice. So I'm really sorry if I sound a
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  little bit croaky throughout this episode.
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  I do have some tea sitting next to me and I'm not even a tea
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  drinker, but we do what we got to do.
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  And to be honest, it probably didn't help that on my way in
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  today, I was singing along to Ariana Grande's probably loudest
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  album, Dangerous Woman. So I may have made things worse.
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  But yes, other than that, Please remember to rate, review, and
• 1:06
  subscribe all of the things. It's all super helpful,
• 1:09
  especially as we're testing a new thumbnail and title
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  structure. So also feel free to let us know
• 1:15
  what you think of that. OK, let's get into the content
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  for this week. So the first story I have today
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  is actually a Local 1 and I do really enjoy covering more local
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  stories every once in a while because I don't know if it's
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  something that you guys who are not based in Sydney may have
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  heard of. So for our first story today, a
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  Sydney artist has taken to social media to reveal that
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  their band was booked to play alongside an AI artist.
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  Like I said, this is a little bit of a niche one, but I do
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  also think it's quite important to cover these stories,
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  especially when it comes to AI because it's showing how AI is
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  changing slash impacting industries at the local level
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  and obviously in this instance, it is the creative space.
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  Anyway, Last week, a musician named Aiden took to Instagram to
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  share a recent experience he had playing a gig.
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  So he performed alongside his band at a local venue in Newtown
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  called Bootleggers for an event called Mixed Bag.
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  The purpose of the Mixed Bag event series is to platform and
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  highlight emerging local artists which which is obviously very
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  important and this event is booked by a Marrickville based
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  music Services Agency. Good Intent and for a little bit
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  more context on Mixed Bag, attendees do have to pay and it
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  costs about 20 AUD each. So the key players in this story
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  are Aiden Bootleggers, which is the venue, and Good Intent which
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  did the booking ahead of this episode.
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  I did contact Aiden and Good Intent for comment.
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  Aiden did get back to us in time for our deadline, but Good
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  Intent did not. So in Aiden's Instagram video,
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  he alleged that the artist that played before him was AI
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  generated or was producing AI generated music.
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  He said he was only aware of this when a member of another
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  band on the lineup had actually looked through the Instagram of
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  this artist and then informed them about it.
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  As for how Aiden felt when he realized that there was an AI
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  artist on line up, he says that he was quote shocked and
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  confused at first, not only at how that was allowed to happen,
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  but also at how that would actually work in a live setting.
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  When I thought about it more, the confusion turned into
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  concern at the direction the live music scene is headed in.
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  I do think Aiden's initial reaction is definitely something
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  we can all relate to because when I first saw this video, one
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  of my first questions was how does an AI artist even work in a
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  live setting? And Aiden does go on to clarify
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  what he means by an AI generated artist.
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  In the video, he claims that the social media presence of this
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  artist seemed to be dominated by AI visuals and what he believed
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  to be AI generated music over top of it.
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  And it seems that the way this artist performed was that there
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  was indeed a human on the stage and they were singing over the
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  top of what seems to be AI generated music.
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  But let's listen to Aidan's video from Instagram.
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  Last night I played a gig at Bootleggers in Newtown, Sydney
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  and the artist that played before us was AI generated.
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  Our band was playing as part of 1 of Bootleggers mixed bag
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  events, the line UPS of which are put together by the agency.
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  Good intent. The artists do not have control
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  over the line up. At no point was it disclosed to
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  us that we would be playing with an AI artist.
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  As a musician it is a complete insult to be put on a line up
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  with someone who uses technology that can only exist because of
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  the large scale theft of the work of my other fellow human
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  musicians. I don't know if Good Intent was
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  aware that this was an AI generated artist when they
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  booked them. If they weren't then whoever is
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  looking for them needs to do a little bit more research as I
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  mean just look at the account. It's fairly obvious what's going
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  on here. As streaming platforms become
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  increasingly inundated with AI slop, live music must be
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  defended as an Ave. for human creative expression.
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  There is no place for generative AI slop in the live music scene.
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  The appeal of live performance is that it is raw.
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  It is passionate in that it is human.
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  AI music delivers none of this, while robbing the opportunity to
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  do so from genuinely talented human musicians who can.
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  As this becomes more commonplace, venues are going to
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  need to work harder to protect the very human artists that have
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  kept patrons coming through their doors before the scene
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  that keeps them alive dies off entirely.
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  So this video currently has over 350 K views and over 22 K likes.
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  The comments are all super, super supportive and I'm sure
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  that was a really reassuring for Aiden because he told us that
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  his decision to speak about it publicly was because he felt,
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  quote, that if it wasn't spoke about, it could easily slip
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  through the cracks again. So he has definitely brought
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  significant awareness to this issue.
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  And I did also ask him if this kind of thing is something he is
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  seeing more and more in the live music space as a musician, or
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  whether this was like an isolated incident.
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  And in response to that, he said that he hopes it's an isolated
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  incident quote. But if it's not addressed at an
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  early age, it could easily become a bigger issue with live
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  musicians finding it increasingly hard to compete
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  with cheaper AI options. And I think that is definitely a
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  valid concern. Now, as you probably had in
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  Aiden's video, he didn't name the AI artist.
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  And I'm going to follow his lead here because I don't really want
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  to give traction to this artist necessarily.
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  But I did go have a look at this artist Instagram profile because
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  obviously I was curious and it definitely does seem to
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  incorporate some kind of AI to promote the performance at
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  bootleggers. The artist said a promotional
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  poster which read quote one human 2 robots pop music.
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  So with that it's very clear that the music is generated with
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  AI to some degree. In fact this was confirmed by
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  the Sydney Morning Herald and I'm going to presume that this
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  person is most likely making this AI generated music through
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  SUNO, but there is no confirmation of that on the
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  artist profile. According to the bio of this
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  artist, they are a Sydney based Afro pop band made-up of 3/2 of
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  which are avatars and one is the lyricist and producer and it
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  said in live performances the lyricist is the one who performs
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  the band's songs on stage and he adds his vocals to the avatars
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  voices. They say that down the line they
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  will have more performers added to this rotation and it's
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  unclear if that means AI quote UN quote performers or human
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  performers. So from my description of this
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  artist's Instagram profile, I think I can say that it's fairly
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  obvious that this artist is AI. So with that in mind, I think a
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  lot of people were worried about the fact that the booking agency
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  didn't seem to care or they were just unaware of it.
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  And this, of course, along with Aiden's video gaining traction,
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  prompted bootleggers and Good Intent to post a shared
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  statement to Instagram. The statement was written from
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  the perspective of Rob Carroll, who is the founder and director
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  at Good Intent. And I'll read you part of the
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  statement now quote, I'll take full responsibility.
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  I didn't look at this particular artist's social and their
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  representatives. Communications used word
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  inconsistent with genuine artists.
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  Their representative described them to us as a producer who
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  used live vocals in their sets. This person was booked through
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  an agency who presented themselves as professional.
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  I hadn't seen them live, but now looking at their socials, their
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  content is clearly and blatantly AI.
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  Good Intent and bootleggers have never knowingly and will never
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  book people who use AI to generate music.
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  For those who don't know us. Good Intent is passionate about
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  supporting and doing the right thing by real artists.
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  We'll ensure we review our vetting processes moving
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  forward. We'd never want to be placed in
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  this position where we're encouraging the use of AI and
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  financially supporting the theft from artists on which AI is
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  trained to put our money where our mouth is.
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  Bootleggers and Good Intent will also make a donation to Support
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  ACT. So the response to this
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  statement has been quite positive, with many social media
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  users and Sydneysiders appreciative that Good Intent
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  took accountability. And honestly, this statement
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  could be used as a blueprint for brands slash companies to
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  address AI usage or I guess platforming AI when it's not
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  something that they intended to do.
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  It felt quite honest in that they like readily took
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  responsibility for what went down.
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  When I read this statement, my first thought was actually how
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  different this was to huff his response to their alleged AI
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  use. Granted, this is a different
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  situation, but I thought it was an interesting comparison of how
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  one company immediately admitted to wrongdoing and the other did
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  not and how that impacted how social media users approached
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  the quote UN quote scandal. In case you missed it, I did
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  report on the Hoffa situation a couple of weeks ago.
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  But as a reminder, a New Zealand based model named Elijah accused
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  Hoffa, which is a New Zealand St. wear brand of using AI
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  generated models in campaigns. And if you want more detail I
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  will link the episode where I covered it in the description.
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  But to make a Long story short, Hoffa really doubled down on the
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  fact that they did not use AI in the way Elijah was alleging.
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  And that may be true, but the way they did so was honestly
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  quite distasteful. Representatives from the brand
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  went on TV and also ended up insulting slash intimidating
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  Elijah in the process. It was honestly crazy.
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  Many people felt like Hoffa was truly ruining their reputation
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  and it was just kind of like an overall PR disaster for them.
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  And obviously this was quite a different approach to good
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  intent. But before I speak about that a
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  little bit more, there are some updates on the Hoffa situation
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  that I wanted to quickly note. The most recent update is that
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  Hoffa commissioned an independent forensic
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  investigation into the AI allegations.
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  There is a limited detail about who conducted it though, and I
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  did go to the link in their bio to try and learn more about this
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  investigation and AI policy, but the 404 error came up, so I
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  wasn't able to access that page. But according to the statement
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  they recently issued, they found quote, no evidence that Hoffa or
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  the agency acting on our behalf used facial image material to
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  generate the AI images in question.
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  It also found no evidence supporting allegations that
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  Hoffa copied or recreated the likeness of any model using AI.
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  And at the same time, they also admitted that, quote, aspects of
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  our public response fell short of the standard we expect of
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  ourselves. For that we are genuinely sorry
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  and we've learnt from this experience.
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  This investigation slash statement came off the back of
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  another statement that they had made that was posted on June
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  11th. And it basically said that the
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  specific imagery in question did quote, generate a new image
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  using an AI design tool, but the image was not engineered to
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  resemble any specific person. So they did admit to some level
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  of AI usage. And now they're kind of going
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  back on that. And honestly, it has left a lot
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  of people, including Elijah confused.
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  Elijah is continuing to call out what seems to be contradictory
• 12:02
  messaging in his content. So if anything else significant
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  drops from that, I will include it in an episode.
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  But All in all, comparing these two situations from a brand
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  perspective, it's clear why good intent statement was well
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  received compared to Hoffa. Like I said, I do think the
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  Hoffa situation is a little bit harder to prove, but it all just
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  kind of comes down to consistency and messaging.
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  Hafiz messaging has not been the same across the board and also
• 12:29
  the tone has differed significantly depending on the
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  medium. And on top of this, they seem to
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  be quite combative slash defensive when it came to
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  Elijah's content, whereas good intent welcomed Aiden's video.
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  And I think that went a long way for how the audience perceived
• 12:45
  them. But yeah, I do think there was
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  just some key differences between the two situations.
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  But I'd definitely be curious to hear what you guys thought of
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  these two and whether you think this comparison is even valid.
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  OK, let's move on to the next story.
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  And we have more news related to prediction markets, which is,
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  like I said last week, my special interest at this point.
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  But honestly, in the way that Lauren had Simone scroll for
• 13:07
  every time that she spoke about Club Chalamet on mini scroll, we
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  need an equivalent for prediction markets.
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  Like at this point, it's mini prediction market scroll.
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  But anyway, I wanted to talk about everything that's
• 13:19
  happening between Cal, she and Spotify.
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  So I guess this is quite a music heavy episode now with a Spotify
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  focus story, but we lean in SoCal.
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  She and Spotify have come under fire for allegedly altering
• 13:32
  music chart. Kaushi basically has these
• 13:35
  monthly betting markets on Spotify's top song chart.
• 13:39
  And a man named Caleb Davies, who's actually 1 of Kaushi's top
• 13:42
  traders, has basically been sounding the alarm that there is
• 13:46
  bot powered manipulation going on with Spotify's charts which
• 13:50
  ultimately messes with the betting market that's tied to
• 13:53
  them. He's been posting all of his
• 13:56
  like data slash receipts under a pseudonym on X.
• 13:59
  If you want to check that out, I will also link it in the
• 14:01
  description, but obviously I will give you a summary because
• 14:04
  this story I feel like can be a little bit complicated.
• 14:07
  So at the end of June, Caleb was making couple tweets flagging
• 14:11
  that there was some weird activity around streaming
• 14:13
  numbers in that month's chart market.
• 14:16
  He basically claimed that there were weird spikes in streaming
• 14:19
  numbers that didn't make sense and seemed manufactured.
• 14:23
  But these allegations really ramped up with Malcolm Todd.
• 14:27
  If you aren't familiar with Malcolm Todd, he is kind of just
• 14:30
  like indie pop alternative R&B guy.
• 14:33
  He's also brothers with Audrey Hobart, who has definitely been
• 14:37
  gaining traction on TikTok for quite a while now, especially
• 14:40
  after Co writing with Gracie Abrams I think it was, and then
• 14:43
  also releasing her song Sue Me. But when it comes to Malcolm
• 14:47
  Todd, there seemed to be an inauthentic surge with his
• 14:50
  streams on his song Earrings. As Caleb explained in a tweet
• 14:55
  quote, Malcolm Todd got fast in what also appears to be blatant
• 14:58
  fraud with a 70% increase in US streams in a day.
• 15:02
  And then he attached a screenshot of Spotify charts
• 15:06
  that showed that Earrings had hit a new peak of #1 where it
• 15:10
  was previously at #4 on the charts.
• 15:13
  In other tweets, he also shared screenshots of charts monitoring
• 15:17
  streams. And there definitely did seem to
• 15:19
  be some quite dramatic spikes. Fans noted that it could have
• 15:23
  been a result of listening parties, but Caleb did push back
• 15:26
  on that, showing what the shape of a legit streaming bump would
• 15:30
  look like. Say, when there are events like
• 15:32
  the Grammys or Coachella where the streams will kind of
• 15:35
  gradually build up and then taper off kind of naturally.
• 15:39
  According to his daughter, Malcolm Todd's streams did not
• 15:42
  look like that at all. It literally just spiked out of
• 15:44
  nowhere and then dropped her right back down.
• 15:46
  On July 1, he shared a tweet trying to figure out the
• 15:49
  likelihood of something like that even happening as he wrote
• 15:52
  quote. As we await the final June
• 15:54
  Spotify update, one last look at how unlikely yesterday's earring
• 15:58
  surge was to have occurred by chance.
• 16:00
  Looking at the data set of Sunday to Monday changes, it was
• 16:04
  a roughly 1 and 77 octillion chance of happening randomly.
• 16:08
  So as you can gather from that, it is pretty unlikely.
• 16:12
  Over the course of him tweeting about this, he also said that he
• 16:15
  had informed Calci and Spotify about the potential manipulation
• 16:19
  and publicly called on Calci to hold trading on the market and
• 16:23
  hold off and paying out until someone actually investigated
• 16:26
  what was going on. In one tweet, he was theorizing
• 16:29
  that there was a Poly market trader inciting songs into
• 16:32
  playlist to farm streams. As far as how Cal she initially
• 16:36
  responded to Caleb's claims, Cal.
• 16:38
  She did end up paying out the winners and Caleb shared that
• 16:41
  they actually emailed him about it as well as he wrote in
• 16:45
  another tweet. Quote Cal, she did pay out the
• 16:47
  market based on fraudulent results right after sending me
• 16:51
  an e-mail stating that there are many plausible reasons that
• 16:54
  Malcolm Todd's timely surge was not due to artificial boosting
• 16:58
  and obviously he pushes back against that.
• 17:00
  But here is I guess the twist. Spotify later confirmed to why
• 17:04
  that yes, they did find evidence of artificial streaming and this
• 17:08
  was the statement that was given to the publication.
• 17:10
  Quote, all streaming services face ever changing stream
• 17:13
  manipulation. Spotify has best in class
• 17:16
  detection and mitigation practices for manipulated
• 17:18
  streams, and we don't pay out associated royalties.
• 17:22
  A spokesperson for Calci did also say that they're in contact
• 17:25
  with Spotify to investigate this issue.
• 17:28
  Spotify has since asked Calci to remove the company's logo from
• 17:32
  its platform and website, and Calci has ultimately added a
• 17:37
  disclaimer ascending that its products quote have not been
• 17:40
  endorsed by Spotify. From Spotify's end, they have
• 17:43
  ultimately adjusted the charts to account for the discrepancy,
• 17:47
  culling over 500 1000 artificial streams which ultimately would
• 17:52
  have taken Malcolm Todd's song down to 4th.
• 17:56
  In saying that though, many publications have been knowing
• 17:59
  that there is no suggestion that Malcolm Todd or his team were
• 18:02
  involved in any attempt to boost streams and numbers on Spotify.
• 18:07
  It seems like the going theory is that potentially someone who
• 18:11
  was betting on Malcolm Todd's song to be #1 paid for, but to
• 18:16
  string the song where they would probably get a bigger payout
• 18:19
  from their winds on prediction markets as opposed to the cost
• 18:23
  they would have to pay for these bots.
• 18:26
  And of course, this all comes at a time of rising concern around
• 18:29
  the growth of prediction markets like calcium Poly market and the
• 18:33
  potential for insider trading, which is something that these
• 18:37
  platforms are trying to limit. But of course, when we look at
• 18:41
  this from a musician's perspective, it is another layer
• 18:45
  of upsetting slash concerning because it's just going to make
• 18:48
  it harder and harder for smaller artist to actually chart when
• 18:51
  foul play like this is in the mix and is an option.
• 18:55
  If the numbers keep being inflated to this degree, it will
• 18:58
  become a lot harder for anyone to actually breakthrough in a
• 19:01
  meaningful way with limited financial resources and backing
• 19:05
  behind them. OK, let's get into our final
• 19:07
  story for today. And this was actually a request
• 19:10
  from a Spotify comment to cover this new dating app Goose.
• 19:14
  I actually did see this on X as well, so thank you very much for
• 19:18
  the reminder. There has been a lot of
• 19:20
  discussion around this app online thanks to a piece by
• 19:23
  Wired that claimed it was a si up meaning psychological
• 19:28
  operation. This is typically used in media
• 19:30
  or like commentary to describe a phenomenon where there's
• 19:33
  manipulation of information or like media or anything like that
• 19:37
  to implement emotion or public opinion, that kind of thing.
• 19:41
  So right now Goose is an invite only dating slash quote UN quote
• 19:45
  lifestyle app for gay men. As the website reads, quote
• 19:48
  Goose is the gay app not just for dating me guys through the
• 19:51
  life. You already have places,
• 19:53
  friends, interest stories and what's happening nearby.
• 19:56
  In the piece Why it does go into detail about the marketing
• 20:00
  strategy of this app Which? The journalist EJ Dixon claims
• 20:04
  involved using AI generated men to get people to join the
• 20:08
  platform. In a thread on X, EJ Dixon does
• 20:11
  share quite a succinct summary of what she found in her
• 20:15
  investigation, so I will definitely link that below.
• 20:17
  But she explains that she first found out about Goose through
• 20:21
  some friends that had told her that they'd received messages
• 20:23
  from quote UN quote random hot guy accounts.
• 20:26
  And she notes that these accounts were all new and
• 20:29
  conventionally attractive. Quote all the messages used
• 20:32
  approximately the same verbiage and all the guys look similar.
• 20:36
  They featured similarly aesthetic post.
• 20:38
  They also all followed each other and commented on each
• 20:41
  other's accounts. Weird.
• 20:43
  So I started running guys photos through Google Gemini and other
• 20:46
  AI detection software. Most or all of the photos were
• 20:49
  apparently generated using Google AI.
• 20:52
  So essentially you have these AI generated profiles messaging men
• 20:56
  to join the app. It's literally giving those hey
• 20:58
  girlie pyramid scheme messages to me.
• 21:01
  Anyway, EJ continues by noting that she found more than 20
• 21:04
  accounts that followed the same kind of pattern, adding that
• 21:07
  they also followed the Goose Co founder, which is another level
• 21:11
  of SAS. And to add even more fuel to the
• 21:14
  fire, she found that Goose was actually looking to hire quote
• 21:18
  UN quote ambassadors who would be able to run Instagram
• 21:22
  accounts, seemingly as a part of its marketing.
• 21:25
  Using what seems to be fake accounts like this to drive
• 21:28
  people to a product is obviously unethical and it's also just not
• 21:32
  allowed, but it has left a lot of the gay community upset,
• 21:36
  which is totally understandable as EJ continues quote.
• 21:40
  It's also pissed off a lot of members of the gay community who
• 21:44
  have already criticized the app for a lack of diversity in its
• 21:47
  marketing and promoting toxic body image standards.
• 21:50
  On one hand, I'm flattered that I'm their target audience. 1
• 21:53
  user told me but the need to essentially bake gay guys into
• 21:57
  signing up feels really sketchy. I did also have a look into the
• 22:00
  sentiment online and I did see one Reddit user on VR slash gay
• 22:04
  Reddit share how the app essentially made them spiral.
• 22:08
  They said quote. I couldn't even tell what was
• 22:11
  real and what was fake anymore. Amongst my Instagram friends.
• 22:14
  I had to go through and remove everyone I never met in real
• 22:17
  life. I thought this was a problem
• 22:19
  that only happened to boomers. No one is immune in the AI era
• 22:22
  clearly. And interestingly on the R
• 22:25
  technology Reddit I have seen many users also say that other
• 22:29
  dating apps do a similar thing. This is not really something
• 22:33
  I've ever seen or really heard of online.
• 22:35
  I'm definitely curious if this is something that you guys are
• 22:39
  familiar with. But as one user recounted quote,
• 22:42
  that's basically how dating apps have worked for years.
• 22:45
  But before AI, they generated profiles by farming Instagram to
• 22:49
  send you a bunch of women who weren't actually using the app.
• 22:52
  And there were quite a few comments like that.
• 22:54
  So I'm gathering that this is something that happens to men
• 22:57
  who are trying to date women. In saying that though, I do
• 23:00
  think it is a little bit more harmful or I guess egregious
• 23:04
  when it comes to a queer face slash app using AI or fake
• 23:10
  accounts in this way. Because this is an example of
• 23:13
  the use of AI to capitalize on a marginalized community that has
• 23:17
  historically found it hard to build these kind of
• 23:20
  relationships or have a safe space to do so.
• 23:23
  And it feels especially hypocritical when it is around
• 23:27
  an app that is built on the premise of finding relationships
• 23:30
  and friendships. Even like I said, the queer
• 23:33
  community has historically relied on these spaces out of
• 23:37
  necessity, so trust and authenticity really matter here
• 23:42
  a lot. And the lack of disclosure that
• 23:44
  this account is essentially operating as an ad and is fake
• 23:48
  is what definitely pushes this into something quite deceptive
• 23:52
  because there is a chance that people can believe they're
• 23:54
  talking to a real person. Anyway, I'm definitely curious
• 23:57
  to hear what you guys think about this story, especially if
• 24:00
  you are someone who has dabbled in the app.
• 24:02
  And I'm also curious if this is something you have noticed with
• 24:05
  other apps like AI generated accounts sliding into DMS or
• 24:09
  trying to get you to download a product or an app.
• 24:12
  I do feel like this is becoming increasingly common.
• 24:14
  Well, that is everything for mini tech scroll today.
• 24:17
  I really hope you guys enjoyed. Lauren will be back for a
• 24:20
  regular mini scroll tomorrow and I will be back on the mic next
• 24:23
  week, presuming I don't continue to lose my voice.
• 24:27
  But thank you so much for listening.
• 24:29
  Bye. Centennial World Podcast Network
• 24:31
  operates on Gadigal land. We would like to acknowledge the
• 24:33
  Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of this
• 24:37
  land, and pay our respects to elders both past and present.