Artist Lead AI Start Up Uncovers Training Datasets

Renowned musician Holly Herndon, a trailblazer in AI exploration, not only harnessed these technologies for her music but crafted her own tools, notably Spawning. Following the debut of her ‘deepfake twin,’ Holly+, in 2021, she has now evolved this venture into a dedicated startup named Spawning, heralded as the architect of the “consent layer for AI.” Spawning’s initial offering, ‘Have I Been Trained?‘, empowers visual artists and writers to discern their presence in popular AI training datasets. With a recent $3 million funding injection, the company gears up to unveil Source+, a marketplace envisaged as a transformative hub for AI-generated content transactions.

In a recent dialogue with the New Yorker, Herndon and her collaborator Mat Dryhurst delved into Spawning’s trajectory within the dynamic AI landscape. The revelations include the company’s strategic funding infusion earlier this year and an imminent foray into Source+, a marketplace poised to reshape the relationship between artists and AI.

The envisaged marketplace holds the promise of transformative collaborations, offering artists a novel revenue stream. The New Yorker painted a compelling scenario where an iconic figure like Bruce Springsteen could commodify his artistic data, ranging from demo tapes to vocal snippets. By licensing this wealth of data to entities like OpenAI for training purposes, Springsteen could catalyze a new paradigm where lesser-known artists band together in Intellectual Property (I.P.) unions. This collaborative framework, exemplified by a potential ‘Boss+’ model based on Springsteen’s data, not only fosters creativity but also introduces a fee-based collaboration avenue for musicians.

Spawning’s journey from innovative AI music creation to a comprehensive marketplace underscores the transformative potential of AI in reshaping how artists generate income and collaborate. As Source+ prepares for launch, it heralds an era where the intersection of AI and artistic expression is not just a tool for individual creation but an ecosystem fostering collective creativity and compensation. The forthcoming marketplace may well mark a pivotal moment in the evolution of AI’s role in the music industry.