SEVENTEEN’s Woozi Directly Refuted BBC’s Misleading Report About AI Songwriting & Composing
Woozi, member and main producer of SEVENTEEN, directly refuted BBC’s article about AI-generated music video and song lyrics
Earlier on July 11th, a freelance journalist published an article titled “Will K-pop’s AI experiment pay off” on the official website of BBC News.
The journalist wrote, “Several of K-pop’s biggest stars have now used Ai to create music videos and write lyrics, including boy band SEVENTEEN”. In particular, controversy broke out due to the claim, “The music video features an AI-generated scene, and the record might well include AI-generated lyrics too.”
However, this is not true. At the press conference to commemorate the release of SEVENTEEN’s best album “17 IS RIGHT HERE” held on April 29th, Woozi said, “I did try applying AI to writing songs and composing. Rather than complaining about new technology, I believe that we should catch up with it. I tried using AI in practicing producing to see the good and bad sides of it”.
He continued, “These days, we have been discussing the advantages of AI and how we can maintain and protect our core identity in this world with rapidly developing technology.” In fact, Woozi said he applied AI in composing as an experiment but never mentioned using AI in composing SEVENTEEN songs.
After reading the BBC article, fans criticized the journalist for twisting Woozi’s words. As the controversy intensified, Woozi eventually expressed his stance by himself. On July 14th, Woozi made a post on his official SNS account, saying “All of SEVENTEEN’s music is written and composed by human creators”.
Even after Woozi spoke up, BBC did not delete their article. They kept the article with the title including the statement about SEVENTEEN’s AI song experiment and negative reactions of K-pop fans, but added a sentence, saying “However, Woozi has since said on Instagram that all of Seventeen’s music is ‘written and composed by human creators’”. The media outlet did not issue any official apology for causing misunderstanding or publishing new articles to correct misinformation.
In this regard, SEVETEEN’s agency Pledis Entertainment said to Newsen on the 15th, “The claim that AI was used in the lyrics of SEVENTEEN songs is not true, and we have immediately conveyed our stance to the foreign media that reported the content for correction”. As a result, BBC deleted the sentence containing the groundless information that SEVENTEEN’s album contained AI-generated lyrics.
