Grammy Award Bosses Ban AI From Competing In Any Category

In response to the use of artificial intelligence in popular music, the Recording Academy has announced a series of modifications to the Grammy Awards, including a requirement that “only human creators” be eligible to win.

According to updated Artificial Intelligence (AI) Protocols published on Friday, “A work that contains no human authorship is not eligible in any category,” they stated.

The guideline was established during the Board of Trustees meeting of the Academy, which took place last month. At that meeting, it was decided that works with AI elements are acceptable as long as a human creator made a “meaningful” contribution to the music and/or lyrics.

The updated specifications state that “the human authorship component of the work submitted must be meaningful.”

At the time, he described AI as “kind of scary but exciting”, adding: “We will just have to see where that leads.”

In addition to the AI rule, the Recording Academy announced that there have been swift changes made to other categories: now, to win a nomination for the album of the year category, a music creator has to account for at least 20% of the work.

That includes all credited artists, featured artists, songwriters, producers, engineers, mixers and mastering engineers, and differs from a decision made in 2021, which allowed anyone who worked on the album to receive a nomination.

The number of those eligible in the “Big Four” categories — best new artists as well as album, song, and record of the year — has been decreased from 10 to eight nominees.

Previously, to be nominated for the “best music film” category, 50 per cent of the documentary footage had to be performance based. The Recording Academy has lifted that requirement.

The change better reflects the evolution of the music doc format, often a collection of verite and archival footage, like Apple TV’s Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry. Biopics and dramatic feature films are still ineligible.

Also eligible are “music-focused and individual music videos that together create a visual album (if videos are packaged and entered together as one cohesive film)”.

The Recording Academy also announced that the best improvised jazz solo award has been renamed best jazz performance, and best regional Mexican music album (including Tejano) has been renamed best musica Mexicana album (including Tejano).

To qualify in the latter category, 50 per cent of the lyrics must be sung in Spanish, or the majority of the musical content must reflect a traditional style of Mexican music, like banda, norteno, corridos, gruperos, mariachi, rancheros, sierreno, jarocho, huasteco and huapango.

Those changes follow the addition of three new categories, announced on Tuesday – best pop dance recording, best African music performance, and best alternative jazz album.