Singer SZA slams AI for training on hundreds of her songs

American R&B singer-songwriter SZA has voiced strong opposition to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in music creation, expressing outrage after discovering that over 200 of her songs were utilized to train AI music models. She shared her findings on Instagram Stories, revealing a database that listed 238 of her tracks as part of AI training data.

"I just checked and AI music has been trained from 238 of my songs. I'm sure some of them haven't been released yet," SZA stated. She added, "If you are a musician and you support using AI to create music, that is something that is disgusting. There is no reason whatsoever that I would accept this."

This is not the first time SZA has spoken out against AI's growing influence. She has been a vocal critic of the technology for some time, even touching upon the issue in her 2022 album "SOS" with the song "Ghost in the Machine." The track reflects her anxieties about a future increasingly shaped by technology, comparing humans and robots.

In a March interview with i-D Magazine, SZA described feeling like she was "at war" with AI's impact on the music industry. She argued that AI disproportionately affects Black music, leading to "weird, stereotypical" music that misrepresents struggles. SZA also pointed to AI-generated song covers using the voices of emerging artists like Olivia Dean, stating that such practices harm artists economically, as AI versions can generate significant streams without compensating the original creators. "I'm not competing with pop singers, or R&B singers. I'm fighting anti-intellectualism and the habit of taking the easy way out," she declared.