Decades before artificial intelligence (AI) became a reality, Hollywood depicted a future living among the technology defining our current age. Movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Minority Report, and Her foreshadowed the contemporary issues of agentic AI, digital surveillance, and AI companionship discussed by scholars and policymakers today. Now, AI is coming to make its…

On March 17, Grammy-nominated artist Tift Merritt and renowned guitarist and composer Marc Ribot came together at Duke’s Periodic Tables, hosted by Science & Society, to discuss the threats that AI-generated music poses to musicians today. Both artists have spent years advocating for musicians’ rights–Ribot as a member of the Music Workers Alliance and Merritt…

As part of our AI & Creative Economy project, we will be launching a special topics course titled, “AI, Ethics, and Creative Economy Policy.” The course will be taught by Prof. Hoffman and Tift Merritt. We welcome students of any background or experience with the topics to join the class. The course is an upper-level…

My colleague asked Spotify to create a playlist of only AI-generated songs. I tried the same. When we followed up by asking how the model knew that the songs were AI-generated, we received completely different answers. The model responded to my colleague, “I think if I helped, I’d be shut down” (in yellow). When I…

On January 22nd, Duke University’s Cyber Policy Program hosted the Distinguished Paladin Capital Cyber Policy Lecture featuring Her Excellency Dr. Einas S. AlEisa, Vice Minister of Education for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The lecture, titled “Building the Next Knowledge System: Why Saudi Arabia Matters for Global Academia,” offered Duke students and faculty a…

A Hearing on Fairness and Common Sense On Tuesday, December 9th, the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property held a hearing for the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA). Currently, the United States is one of the few countries that do not pay performing artists for terrestrial radio alongside Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. The AMFA…

A New Type of Music Industry Over the past 15 years, the music industry has shifted toward music streaming, away from individual music purchases. This has given rise to a handful of oversized conglomerates. Music streaming accounts for 84% of all music revenue. Spotify, Apple, and Amazon control 90% of music streaming. The streaming model…

Imagine you’re a vocalist. Since you were a young child, you spent countless nights rehearsing to sing your heart out every Sunday for the church choir. You always knew singing was your passion, and now you’re finally at an age where you can make your musical dreams come true. You want to record your first…

In December 2022, after Elon Musk dissolved Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, concern grew about Twitter restructuring its content moderation and data usage policy. Due to the concern over the lack of transparency into Twitter’s protection of data, I thought that it was pertinent to better understand the company’s Privacy Policy. When describing who Twitter…