Kim Kwang-Seok voice recreation prompts plagiarism concerns

The recreation of late South Korean folk-rock singer Kim Kwang-Seok's voice for an AI-human singing competition prompted concerns from fans and digital rights activists.

Kim's voice was brought to life using local AI company Supertone's Singing Voice Synthesis system to perform 'I miss you', a 2002 ballad by Kim Bum-soo, and performed as a duet with another singer for the 'Competition of the Century: AI vs Human' show on broadcast TV network SBS. 

The performance delighted Kim's fans. Howerver, despite the singer's family giving permission for the use of his voice, the show prompted concerns about plagiarism, copyright, and the potential misuse and abuse of deepfake technologies. 

The late singer died in 1996 aged 31 after a strong of hits. His death was officially attributed to suicide.

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• https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-ai-voice-recreation/south-korean-ai-technology-brings-back-folk-singers-voice-idUSKBN29Y18O

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