SZA Rips 'Degenerate' AI Music After Discovering Hundreds Of Her Songs Were Used To Train It

AI-generated books, art, and music are becoming increasingly common. And, disturbingly, it's getting more difficult to distinguish these products from original works—created by human artists—since those original works are being fed into AI training platforms to "teach" them.

And since tech companies apparently assume original works can be used to train their AI models, it's difficult to deny consent, leading many artists to discover their work has been mined by these platforms without their knowledge.

SZA is the latest among these musicians. The rapper and singer has released more than 50 standalone music tracks in her career, and there are many others that are either unreleased or in production.

She took to her private “notmusicatalliswear” Instagram account on Saturday to criticize artists who use AI music generators such as Suno. She said in her post that producer Diplo had equity in the company and was trying to train it on “the best and brightest black minds of writers and producers.”

She captioned the video:

“We make up 13% of the American population yet influence the world w our sound and perspective. I AINT HEARD A WHITE AI SONG YET…We have no protection in legislature medical or creative. The easiest to steal from. DO NOT GIVE AWAY YOUR VIBRANIUM !!! DO NOT TRAIN AI W YOUR GENIUS.”

According to her search of a music database that trains AI, allegedly 238 files were uploaded, meaning that songs that were available to the general public and songs that only SZA and a small number of other people would have access to for production purposes had been shared on the platform.

She also vented her frustration on her main Instagram account and called out the issue in her Stories:

"Jus [sic] checked and music Ai has trained off 238 of my songs. Im certain some unreleased."

"If your [sic] a musician and you support this degenerate s**t?"

"Your [sic] DISGUSTING and there’s NOTHING YOU COULD EVER SAY TO ME TO MAKE THIS OKAY."

"I hope u have the life u deserve."

SZA's story was shared on X, where users were divided over her concerns about AI. Some shared her anger and agreed that AI-generated music and other products were becoming an increasing problem.

Others were dismissive and said SZA was already rich enough and that AI tools were "inevitable."

While people might criticize SZA and claim she's being selfish with her art, it's still her art. Whether an artist is a big name or not shouldn't matter when it comes to consenting to share work.

If AI's going to exist, there should at least be limits in place that hold platforms and their owners accountable.