Is it a forward-facing marketing strategy? Is it a copyright nightmare? Is it a precedent-setting lawsuit waiting to happen? Is it going to make musicians unemployed? Is it so ridiculous as to be elevated to the level of satirical art prank? 

It’s probably all of this and more. In brief, David Guetta – a man whose career has been boosted several times by the judicious use of a featured vocalist – has teased a piece of music he created that features the “vocals” of Eminem created using AI. 

He says he’s not going to release the “collaboration” (or should that be “collabor-AI-tion”?) commercially, but he was more than happy to post a brief clip online from a live set so that people get an idea of what the AI Eminem (or, as Guetta terms him, Emin-AI-em) sounds like. 

“It is something I made as a joke and it worked so good I could not believe it,” Guetta explains in the video. He reveals he started off by going to an AI website (he does not say which one) that promises to write lyrics in the style of any pop star. He got it to write a verse “in the style of Eminem about future rave” and took that to another AI site (again undisclosed) to feed in the lyrics and have it recreate the rapping style and voice of Eminem. 

“This is the future rave sound,” says the AI Eminem in the video as Guetta lip-syncs along, “I’m getting awesome and underground.” To be fair, it does sound like Eminem. 

Guetta told the BBC, “I’m sure the future of music is in AI. For sure. There’s no doubt. But as a tool.”

He added, “Nothing is going to replace taste. What defines an artist is you have a certain taste, you have a certain type of emotion you want to express, and you’re going to use all the modern instruments to do that.”

He leaned hard on the technological determinist stance that new genres and new sounds come from new uses of technology and said this was no different. 

Eminem has not responded – or even created an AI version of Guetta mocking the process. Is he preparing his legal case? Is he not bothered? Is he in on the joke? Is it actually him rapping and the whole thing is a multi-tier prank?

It all raises a thousand questions about future creativity and rights ownership. It also raises a thousand questions about what music marketing will have to become in an AI future, most notably if the gimmick is going to overshadow the music.