Behind the Beat: Fenix Flexin’s ‘Rubberz’ and the AI Controversy it Ignited
A gust of AI chatter was stirred up recently when we speculated if popular track ‘Rubberz’ by Fenix Flexin was generated through artificial intelligence. The name being tossed around? ‘Treblo,’ an AI music generating tool. While we were pretty convinced of this hypothesis, musician Medasin opined the tune was crafted explicitly using Treblo.
What seemed initially like a casual conjecture escalated into an eye-opening affirmation recently when the inventors of Treblo decided to dive deeper. On a surprising turn of events, the leading-edge company introduced the open-source Treblo AI Music Classifier—an innovative detection tool designed to sniff out compositions created using Treblo.
Obviously, the focus was not to become a global AI lie-detector test. The newly devised classifier restricts its detective abilities to identifying pieces triggered by Treblo alone. However, the revelation of its false positive rate surprised many. Boasting an error rate as scarce as 1 in 10,000 — it’s certainly not impeccable — but definitely an achievement worth recognition.
With the advent of this tool, the air was cleared when the company’s own classifier confirmed through high confidence that ‘Rubberz’ was a product of Treblo, after all. Although nothing is proven until it’s proven, this seemingly innocuous news add a considerable fuel to the already burning PR catastrophe Fenix Flexin is caught into the middle of.
Whether or not to embrace the emergence of AI in the music realm is a broader conversation we’re still scratching the surface of. However, one thing we could possibly agree on is how the authenticity of an artist’s work is perceived from here. At the end of the day, it’s the melody that talks to our souls and not the possible AI brains behind it.
Although the insights revealed by the new AI classifier are electrifying and somewhat controversial, one can’t deny a hint of revolution that AI in music promises. Only time will say if it’s for the best or otherwise. Until then, we can dwell onto dissecting the many layers AI is adding to our much-loved music realm!
Credit: The Verge
