Google hires Donald Glover and Wyclef Jean to recruit artists skeptical of AI

AAt Google’s annual product party on Tuesday, the corporate unveiled a variety of latest AI services, including a video generation model called Veo, a rival to OpenAI’s Sora that creates high-resolution and professional-looking footage, and a tool called AI Music Sandbox that uses machine learning to Creating musical compositions and mixing genres.

But as artists proceed to protest the usage of AI within the creative industries, Google has won over some big names: actor and filmmaker Donald Glover and musician Wyclef Jean.

“Everyone becomes a director. And everyone should be a director,” Glover said in a promotional video that Google showed at its I/O developer conference in Mountain View, California. “Because at the center of all of this is storytelling.”

In the video, Glover is at a farmhouse in Ojai, California together with his production team and Google researchers, using Veo to create a brief film. Glover, wearing a bucket hat and cardigan, says he became thinking about AI and contacted Google, which was working on AI video tools. The team enters prompts right into a laptop, comparable to “tracking shot of a 1960s convertible driving to a Spanish Mediterranean palace,” and watches the footage generated. The film, which Glover’s team created with Google, shall be “coming soon.”

In a separate promo video for AI Music Sandbox, Jean plays guitar and records a sample. He then uploads it to the software and uses the drop-down menu to combine Haitian and Brazilian styles. It recalls the history of hip-hop production, when artists searched through crates of vinyl for sounds to try. “Right now we’re digging in the infinite box,” says Jean. “It’s endless.”

Google didn’t reply to a request for comment about how much the corporate paid each artist for his or her performances.

Celebrity endorsements are nothing latest for Google. Stars like NBA player Giannis Antetokounmpo and actor Simu Liu are voice actors for the corporate’s Pixel phones, and singer John Legend has lent his voice to Google’s Assistant service for its home smart speakers.

But while these were sympathetic endorsements, Glover and Jean’s guest appearances on Tuesday put them in the midst of a heated debate in Hollywood. When actors, writers and directors went on strike last 12 months, a serious conflict in contract negotiations was the usage of generative AI, as artists feared they might get replaced by machines. Last week, Apple released a industrial for its latest iPad wherein musical instruments and books are crushed by a hydraulic press, compressing all of their creative value into the Apple gadget. The ad sparked a backlash from actors including Hugh Grant and Justine Batemen. Apple apologized for the video, noting that the corporate had “missed the mark.”

And last month, a bunch of greater than 200 musicians, including Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder and Nicki Minaj, signed an open letter We urge technology firms to not develop AI tools that might threaten the livelihoods of human songwriters or artists. “Some of the largest and most powerful companies are using our work without permission to train AI models,” the letter said. “These efforts are directly aimed at replacing the work of human artists with massive amounts of AI-generated ‘sounds’ and ‘images’ that significantly dilute the royalties paid out to artists.”

But not all musicians agree against AI. Last month, Grimes invited creators to make latest music using AI-generated versions of her voice, and noted that she would share royalties from any successful tracks.

Google unveiled several other AI tools at Tuesday’s conference, including an initiative called Project Astra that turns its Gemini AI model into an agent that may reply to an individual’s surroundings in real time by sensing their surroundings using a smartphone -Camera analyzed. Another demo showed an agent performing tasks for a user, comparable to returning a pair of unwanted shoes to the shop.

The tech giant has already courted controversy over its AI products. Earlier this 12 months, Gemini was criticized for producing historically inaccurate images, comparable to images of a pope’s wife or black Vikings. In response, Google stopped using its image generation tool and apologized.

In Tuesday’s promo video for Veo, Glover alluded to the role of software within the creative process. “It’s easier to make a mistake,” he said. “The only thing you really want at the end of the day – at least in art – is to make mistakes quickly.”