Visual China.
Text **Xiansheng, author |Ding Qianwen, Editor |Fan Zhihui.The three-dimensional real idol is not fragrant.
On December 13, the virtual boy group PL**E launched by VLAST, an internal enterprise of South Korea's MBC TV, entered the 123rd place on the Melon chart with its new song "Merry Pllistmas" and the daily crown of BUGSIt is much higher than the results of many fifth- and sixth-generation live-action boy groups, which has attracted great attention from K-pop fans.
On the day of its release on the 12th, it also beat Lin Yingying, Le Sserafim, aespa and other popular artists to rank first in the Melon chart in real timeBecome the first sixth-generation group to win the Melon real-time spot. At the same time, they are also the second newcomer group to debut in 2023 after the draft boy group ZB1 to achieve a cumulative flow of more than 100 million for Melon.
For the K-pop idol market, it is extremely rare for a non-real idol to take the top spot in the authoritative list. It is worth noting that the virtual group is also the only virtual idol boy group nominated for the Best Newcomer at the Korea Golden Disc Awards and MMA Awards this year, competing for awards with rookie boy groups such as Riize and Xikers.
In addition, the AI girl group M**E also refreshed Spotify in March this year to exceed 4 million monthly listens, becoming the only non-real idol group among the top 15 K-pop artists in the Spotify monthly listening rankings;Its debut ** "Pandora Box" released this year also set a record of the first K-pop newcomer ** streaming media this year on Spotify with 44.6 million **.
It can be said that AI-powered virtual idols seem to be gradually gaining the high ground in K-pop.
The development of South Korea's idol industry is extremely keen on the exploration of non-real-life idols, and it is also gradually trying to explore the universal use of AI-made idols in subdivided tracks such as virtual idols, real-life and virtual combinations, and talent shows through cooperation between entertainment companies and technology companies.
As early as 1998, South Korea launched the virtual singer ADAM, but it did not improve in the early stage. In 2018, (G)i-DLE members Tian Xiaojuan and Cao Weijuan participated in the K DA group derived from "League of Legends" with their vocals, but the short-term activities of K DA did not form a phenomenal climate in the K-pop field.
Under this, the virtual girl group M**E, which debuted in January this year, is South Korea's first all-AI girl group jointly created by South Korean technology giant Kakao and game company Met**erse.
Among them, M**E also relies on AI voice generators to realize the "mastery" of multiple languages by members and the establishment of "global girl group" personalities from the United States, France, Indonesia, and South KoreaThe highly acclaimed silky choreography is based on the live-action choreography, and the members are "combined" with AI motion capture and real-time 3D rendering technology to reproduce the smooth dance of the members. For example, M**E is no different from a real idol, and it also has a live singing stage, Xi a practice room rehearsal, and behind-the-scenes footage and other material shooting, and it is not just "live" in the MV.
The virtual boy group PL**E, which also debuted this year, is not strictly speaking, an orthodox AI idol, and its virtual image is Live2D, more with the help of AI motion capture technology to complete the perfect match between the "person in the middle" and the holster, so as to achieve the visual perception of not wearing molds and **people. But it is precisely because of this that it also lacks a certain real image, and is biased towards the two-dimensional sense of the demeanor of the comic characters.
This practice of hiding the "person in the middle" is also similar to the current head virtual idol A-soul in China, which is based on the blessing of artificial intelligence and applies the standardized and industrialized K-pop idol operation method.
The AI girl group Eternity, created by South Korean technology company Plus9 in 2021, was born out of the "AI Heartbeat Challenge" held online, and the 11 members were voted for by netizens from 101 virtual portraits. In addition to the voices generated by AI, the members of the girl group also rely on real-time face swapping technology to complete the level to which a virtual member can be played by multiple real actors.
For example, behind the members of Zairen is played by 10 real people across different fields, and their professional talents are "loaned" to AI to process into 18 martial arts of virtual members. However, this girl group is also very stiff in its initial expressions and movements, and it is difficult to attract fans into the pit.
Of course, the combination of AI idols and real members is also more common in K-pop.
In 2020, SM took the lead in launching the coexistence of AI and real people, and the K-pop girl group aespa introduced virtual avatars, which consisted of four real people and four digital self avatars created through AI technology, but the virtual members did not carry out idol activities with the real members, but were more as "easter egg guests" or the metaverse images of real members to supplement the concept of aespa's world view.
But last year, Deep Studio's boy group SuperKid was the first boy group in K-pop to have AI virtual members, including one virtual member and four real members, and they performed idol activities together. As a virtual member of AI production, Saejin is also seen as a comprehensive product of the "façade" of boy groups such as NCT and Astro because of his handsome appearance and familiar eyebrows.
In March this year, the group also added a real member and a virtual member Seung again to play songs with the single "Moody". However, compared with aespa's instant hit, although Superkind relies on AI members to gain a certain amount of attention, it has not been able to complete the conversion of fans and traffic so far.
In addition, although the head brokerage companies that have long been aiming at the AI market have not made a big move into the operation of virtual idols, the pace of increasing the layout has not stopped.
For example, YG and CJ E&M teamed up to launch virtual singers Yua and SM last year, and based on AESPA's worldview, they built a virtual human Naevis, which is dedicated to the AI track, and its voices are also generated by AI by extracting the original voices of multiple voice actors. In January this year, HYBE also invested 45 billion won to acquire AI audio company Supertone, and in May this year, it launched AI artist Midnatt, which extracts the voice of singer Lee Hyun, and released a single in six Chinese languages.
Not only that, but the draft track and the anchor track are also trying to get a piece of the pie, such as the 8 places in the final group of the draft "Universe Ticket" broadcast in the second half of this year, including members of the real space and virtual space;The virtual girl group called Isegye Idol is a virtual anchor girl group created by South Korean anchor Woo Wow Ge, the group's new work "Kidding" released in August this year has fallen all the way on Melon, and finally hit the highest ranking of 41 on the daily list, much higher than the daily list of popular girl groups such as Oh My Girl and Twice.
It is not difficult to see that as one of the most developed regions in the idol industry, South Korea has devoted itself to the construction of AI production of virtual idols, as if it is not just the production of AI, but the use of AI to build a new development model of the idol industry.
In fact, as early as 2020, Lee so-man, then an SM producer, pointed out that the future of entertainment is celebrities and robots.
K-pop's high emphasis on AI technology comes from the revelation of the industrial crisis.
On the one hand, with the decline in the fertility rate, the idol industry will inevitably enter the situation of depleting Xi resources and idol reserve talents, even if many brokerage companies are now focusing on the introduction of multi-nationality and the creation of global idols, but similar to the "runaway" history of EXO green card members, it also makes some brokerage companies shy away from launching K-pop idols with high green card content.
On the other hand, it is hoped that K-pop artists will minimize the risk of being overly pressured to catch up with business needs and maximize their benefits. After all, to a certain extent, real idols not only have the risk of collapsing at any time, but also find it difficult to overload, while virtual idols can optimize a large number of problems.
Park Ji-eun, head of Plus9, a company affiliated with the virtual girl group Eternity, once said, "Scandals caused by real-life K-pop artists are entertaining, but they also pose a threat to the business sector, and virtual idols can be perfect, and they can be more human than humans." In her opinion, using AI to create virtual K-pop idols can better avoid all kinds of social problems brought by real idols that may affect the revenue sector.
In addition, as HYBE Chairman Fang Shihyuk said, K-pop's existing industrial structure has limited its own growth, and "we should seek a wider consumer layer in a broader market."
According to Emergen Research, the global AI virtual human market will reach 5,275 by 2030At the level of 800 million US dollars, this market prospect has also given K-pop the confidence to vigorously develop AI technology and virtual idols. What's more, after the epidemic period, the global fan base has become more and more receptive to the mode of non-offline interaction with idols.
The same,Compared with real idols, virtual idols are also more flexible and diversified in their monetization channels, which can span from entertainment to technology, and even touch areas that cannot be transformed by real idols. For example, in 2020, Sidus StudioX's virtual idol Rozy appeared on a virtual fashion show and received endorsements in fields ranging from lifestyle brands to live-action game brands, and was able to generate a considerable annual income of 2 billion won just by advertising endorsements.
According to the Korea Electronics and Communications Research Institute, AI technology is also becoming commercialized with the rapid development of generative AI technology.
Therefore, it can also be seen that since the rise of the metaverse and NFT concepts, K-pop has never stopped testing the waters, such as NFT cards and NFT** have been widely used in K-pop idols, and idol groups such as BTS and BLACKPINK have also launched virtual concerts and virtual image IPs in recent years, as well as selling digital fan collections.
In the K-pop fan group, AI cover gameplay is also popular, that is, through a large number of vocals to feed and train AI to cover non-personal ** works for a certain idol's voice, such as YG's recently launched rookie girl group Babymonster debut song "Batter Up", which was covered by several netizens' own "AI Blackpink", and was even considered to be better than the original song at one time.
AI technology is also reshaping the creation and consumption scenarios of the K-pop industry. For example, the number of AI composers like EVOM has multiplied, and it uses a large amount of data to feed training, and can produce ** works in a few minutes. Although there are still some shortcomings compared to works created by real people, it also gives K-pop practitioners a perspective that can magnify the benefits.
In the view of the ** Copyright Society of South Korea, this is an extremely fatal blow to human creators who need to polish their works, "AI composers and lyricists can create very quickly and without great restrictions, and if AI rules K-pop, it may bring chaos to the ** industry."
In fact, the generation of AI ** people is also based on the feeding of a large number of ** databases, and there is no lack of possibility of infringing on original works, and it will also affect the livelihood of human ** people due to the efficient output of the creative model, and may even cause a blow to the field of pop culture.
In the eyes of most K-pop practitioners, the popularity of AI ** is inevitable. Fang Shihe also pointed out that he was confused about whether real people would continue to be the only one that produced the best products that cater to the needs and tastes of the consumer market"AI may be reshaping the future of K-pop music."
For example, at the beginning of the creation of Eternity, Plus9 referred to the draft AI ethics guidelines issued by the European Union to produce virtual girl groups, rather than giving up the use of AI due to moral and copyright issues.
Not only that, but it is still a big question whether the use of AI to make idols can be comparable to the interaction between traditional K-pop real-life idols and consumer audiences, and Lee Gyu-tae, an associate professor at the Institute of Cultural Studies at George Mason University in South Korea, believes that "without any unpredictable freshness, AI idols are just something close to the best technology, not K-pop."
The K-pop idol industry is frequently testing the waters of AI, but it is still impossible to judge whether AI can become the new engine of K-pop.
This is because the current problem facing brokerage companies - the contradiction between the virtual and the real is still unresolved. Just as the virtual girl group M**E is very close to real idols, and has exceeded 20 million** on YouTube and 3 million monthly listeners on Spotify, the goal of its subordinate Met**ESE Entertainment is still to "create fully AI-driven, truly credible virtual humans".
This is also because K-pop is characterized by a response to the demands of the fans. However, virtual idols are now trying to get close to the "rice sa" behavior of real idols, but there is still a certain sense of dummy, biased towards chatbot services.
How to establish emotional, memorable and long-term close connections with consumer audiences is also the key for K-pop to use AI technology to break through the next city. After all, whether it is a real person or an AI, the ultimate goal of harvesting is the global K-pop fan economy.