This should make it much easier to avoid the deluge of slop.
YouTube Music just added clear labels that denote whether a track has been generated by AI. This is great news for people who like listening to actual music, and not weird and slightly metallic-sounding imitations.
An oblong label that reads "AI" sits directly below the track name, so it's tough to miss. The label will be visible on songs that were fully generated by AI, but also tracks that used a model to create major components like vocals. YouTube says the label will accompany anything "where AI played a significant role."
Tapping the label opens up a menu that provides information as to how AI was used, which can help inform users if they should continue listening or not. It seems like a rather clean solution and not too dissimilar from how YouTube already labels AI-generated video content on the main platform.
To that end, the regular YouTube app hosts a whole lot of music videos and related content. The company says these specific labels are also coming to the video player at some point.
YouTube Music isn't the only platform looking to stem the tide of endless audio slop. Spotify has begun labeling fake artists and Deezer is implementing a filtering system that weeds out AI.