December 23, 2024

Record Labels Sue A.I. Music Generators, Inside the Pentagon’s Tech Upgrade and HatGPT


Record labels — including Sony, Universal and Warner — are suing two leading A.I. music generation companies, accusing them of copyright infringement. Mitch Glazier, chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, the industry group representing the music labels, talks with us about the argument they are advancing. Then, we take a look at defense technology and discuss why Silicon Valley seems to be changing its tune about working with the military. Chris Kirchhoff, who ran a special Pentagon office in Silicon Valley, explains what he thinks is behind the shift. And finally, we play another round of HatGPT.

Guest:

  • Mitch Glazier, chairman and chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America

  • Chris Kirchhoff, founding partner of the Defense Innovation Unit and author of Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War

Additional Reading:

“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton and produced by Rachel Cohn and Whitney Jones. This episode was edited by Larissa Anderson. Engineering by Corey Schreppel and original music by Dan Powell, Elisheba Ittoop and Rowan Niemisto. Fact-checking by Caitlin Love.

Special thanks to Paula Szuchman, Pui-Wing Tam, Nell Gallogly, Kate LoPresti and Jeffrey Miranda.