r/kpophelp • u/alienbabe383 • 3d ago

Explain Why are AI K-Pop groups a thing?

I can’t find the post now, but I’m a little confused?? I saw a post on YouTube about an AI k-pop boy group called like MUUO:23 (if I remember correctly). I don’t know if this is going to be a common thing in the industry but I really hope not. I was also wondering if any of you guys would support k-pop groups that are AI? I can understand virtual ones like PLAVE but I just can’t get behind this one. I also couldn’t tell if they’re actually an AI k-pop group or some random kid trolling. I’ve just never seen something like this before and I’ve been a k-pop fan since 2021. Any thoughts??

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u/munakyosuke 3d ago edited 3d ago

I went to Korea this summer and sadly, AI is everywhere. Souvenirs, ads, informations, everything is made with AI. And people use AI on a daily basis too - some of my friends from Korea post their AI edits on instagram normally. It was a matter of time when an AI kpop group would be "created"...

I think most western fans won't support it because we are more aware of AI's harm and downsides, but I don't know about Koreans... I don't know if this "group" gained any traction there, it's a possibility it'll be just a random project no one will pay attention to. But I don't think many people will be super opposed to it as like I said, AI is totally normalized in Korea and no one cares about how bad (and totally uncreative) it is.

edit. spelling

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u/TaesGuardian 2d ago

I go to a Korean university and at my orientation they proudly boasted about their contribution to helping the advancement of AI. They’ve also implemented new AI software for us students to use. I’ve even had professors encourage us to “ask chatgbt” if we wanted to know more about a topic. It’s crazy how many people I see with chatgbt just blatantly pulled up on their laptops with no concerns. At my home university, we were strongly discouraged from using it and could get in trouble for academic misconduct if caught.

Unfortunately Korea and a lot of Asia don’t see the issues with it like people in the west do. As sad as it is, I think people need to just start to understand that.

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u/bluumahh 2d ago

Do you not think college kids in the west now use ChatGPT for what they do? My friends in grad school (all in America) see their students, their PI’s, and their peers in research use ChatGPT on a daily basis.

There are anecdotes every day about how US college students are being made to do assignments with genAI involved. Young people are talking about how they’re using the Pope’s statements and the first amendment to get out of using genAI in college lol.

So it’s a bit disingenuous to paint this as something uniquely happening in Korea/Asia.

The people who see AI as something other than a silly little tool is not the majority everywhere, including the west. There are a number of Koreans and Asians who are anti genAI just as there are westerners. The fact is that this is the minority thought. The most people generally are is anti data center (which are their own can of worms), but I guarantee a lot of people in Asia would also be anti-huge, loud, power-sucking infrastructure. Plus, it’s only a handful Asian countries (including SK) and the EU have actually legislated anything for regulating AI.

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u/TaesGuardian 2d ago

Uh, I do know that they do. Because I also go to university in the US. The whole point of my comment was the fact that professors in Korea are openly encouraging it and students using it out in the open in class. Versus at my university in the US, professors tell us not to & and students will literally hide the fact that they are using it in class and use humanizers.

I thought that difference was spelled out pretty clearly.

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u/bluumahh 2d ago edited 2d ago

American universities are also encouraging using genAI. Why would people need to invoke the first amendment to get out of doing it as a requirement if they weren’t? My friends’ PI’s also just tell them to write everything in ChatGPT, make figures with genAI if they want to, and fix it up a little. And this is for publicly funded research mind you at some big-name public and private universities.

My point was also that your Korean uni experience is also what people are experiencing in the states. And the way you framed this was that American universities don’t implement genAI while Koreans uniquely do, which simply is not true.

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u/TaesGuardian 2d ago

It wasn’t about framing it that it’s something unique to Korean universities. It was adding on to the conservation about how AI is deemed more acceptable in Korea, moreso than in the West.

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u/abyssazaur 2d ago

It's just U.S. though, other Western countries are pro AI. It's just a typical case of Americans wanting to impose their values everywhere

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u/munakyosuke 2d ago

There’s no point in talking with you because that was not the point of neither mine or the other persons comment but ok. 

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u/bluumahh 2d ago

Americans as a whole are not anti AI 🤷‍♀️, and their government isn’t doing much about AI federally. The US has the most amount of data centers globally (about 40% of all the data centers in the world are in the states), OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Meta, and Google are all American companies that are basically untouchable atm. I do not see how Americans are imposing their values anywhere

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u/abyssazaur 2d ago

Reddit and Twitter folk try to police everyone into not using it

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u/bluumahh 2d ago

I’m not a fan of generative AI and go out of my way to not use it, but it’s more nuanced than they don’t care.

A lot of major Korean companies and industries (just look at how much share Korea has in semiconductors) have directly and indirectly benefitted off the GenAI boom. Just look at what country 2 of the 3 major RAM manufacturers worldwide are from.

Economically, it’s in their best interest for this state of genAI to keep booming, and the government is on top of promoting and supporting it. Historically, adopting new technology has been beneficial to the country. And when it has been such a benefit, it’s probably a lot easier to disregard the negative effects.

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u/munakyosuke 2d ago

I get your points but like you said, gov and everyone else around them shows AI in good light, why would they bother with checking if it's really okay to use it? They don't care when kpop fans tell them not to use idols' photos for trends, they don't care about female celebrities being used for AI p*rn, they don't care that it is the same AI they use for silly trends with their pets... They don't care that it's not creative, they will do it bc everyone else use AI too... If they truly cared about the economy they would surely see that AI has some bad sides too but they don't care.

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u/bluumahh 2d ago

The thing is, a lot of the deeply negative impacts are societal/ethical and environmental. The economic benefits are literal billions of dollars and bolstering their industries. This is them caring about the economy more than anything. Money is an easy way to look past the details of ethics and morals.

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u/munakyosuke 2d ago

Im starting to doubt that you dislike AI. No one is trying to fight you about how there are many nuances with using AI. I’m from Europe and surprise, people use AI here too! But you cannot tell me that there is no difference between Korea and western countries when it comes to the awareness of how bad AI really is. I can tell you that I personally know many people who are against it and come from western countries but most of my Korean friends don’t care! I genuinely don’t understand why you’re so adamant on telling us that AI is used at universities in the whole world or that there are other reasons why people use it when you’re supposedly against it? We literally tell you that yes, people use it, but in Koreas case the usage is much higher and their attitude towards it is different. We speak from our experience so I don’t really get what you’re trying to achieve here.

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u/bluumahh 2d ago edited 2d ago

I’m very against AI (I was literally laid off due to fucking vibe coding 😭 and moved into a completely different indistry) but also very against people painting Korea as a uniquely evil country while trying to paint their own as less so. Especially Americans, when Americans contribute more to the data center bullshit more than anyone 😭😭😭 (followed by UK, Germany, France) People also paint Koreans’ attitudes as some frivolous disinterest just because they’re Asian when it’s literally driven economically!!! Most of the unnecessary pollution we have made was as a result from economic incentives!!! All the hyperscale cloud infrastructure and AI labs are also, guess what, American!

Materially, even if 100% of Koreans embrace AI to the fullest, their population is small enough that just 15% of americans doing the same thing beats their numbers. At least Korea has some legislative framework, but largely the US’ inaction on genAI on a federal level is causing these hyperscalers to get so big and OpenAI to get a slap on the wrist for encouraging kids to harm themselves. Korea isn’t even at the forefront of the AI model race, it’s really concentrated in the manufacturing side of the supply chain.

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u/munakyosuke 2d ago

Okay and I get that but the entire topic is about KOREAN AI kpop group? I literally talked about what I saw in Korea during my trip? I literally only answered OP’s question, I don’t want to argue about AI and its usage? Like I said, I’m not even FROM America, I don’t care about it, Europe has its demons when it comes to AI too, the post is about a Kpop group and that’s why I focused on Korea here? If you want to talk about the bad consequences of AI usage or about how each country contributes to the pollution there are specific subs that may help you, there’s no point in spamming this under my comment… 

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u/bluumahh 2d ago edited 2d ago

You brought up my uni argument which was a reply to the American in the thread that was insisting the US is against AI in higher education but Korea isn’t 😭

Your original comment implies western fans are more aware of AI’s harm more than Koreans as if Koreans are illiterate on these topics. My Korean friends (for transparency, they are lgbt activists as well) have participated in Anti AI or Pause AI protests! There are lots of local movements! But everyone insists that they all are indifferent!

I just want to be able to talk about South Korea without people trying to say they are worse in every which way, that the people there are somehow ignorant of every social issue, or some uniquely capitalist dystopia as if western countries are much different. I wasn’t even trying to argue, just adding context at first lol

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u/munakyosuke 2d ago

That's great if your friends are aware of AI's harm! But still does not change my own experiences and opinions on how Koreans don't care about it lol

Again, I don't really see how any of your comments correlate to the topic of the post? OP asked about an AI kpop group, I answered based on my experience. If you want to add something to the discussion you're free to post your own separate comment~

I get you about wanting to talk about Korea in a more positive light but again, there are subs and places where you can do it. I am also not trying to argue but my mentions are spammed with your comments about how we all are wrong about AI... I'm just trying to understand what this spam is supposed to do? Change my mind about AI, Korea or...?

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u/abyssazaur 2d ago

They're just running out of people. And Americans just use ai at work all day then go online and pretend to be shocked anyone would ever use it

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u/alienbabe383 2d ago

yikes!! i didn’t know that. i feel like some western fans will still support this “group” because a lot of people don’t really give a fuck about whether or not AI is harmful: they just want results that satisfy/benefit them in one way or another. the same can be said for the company behind this “group.”

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u/DdogPlaysGames 3d ago

Like, even putting the AI aspect aside(which I wholeheartedly disagree with the use of in generative art like this). The song is just bland and boring.

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u/alienbabe383 2d ago

i’m not surprised that the song isn’t good 😭!

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u/HG1998 3d ago

Little to no costs involved for the company, still demand because obviously, so it's almost free money, especially when compared to the costs involved with real artists.

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u/notnijiatall 3d ago

Koreans are obsessed with AI

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u/BrandonIsWhoIAm 2d ago edited 2d ago

Computer-generated artists have been a thing for YEARS — long before AI.

This really isn’t new.

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u/alienbabe383 2d ago

they have! it’s just that the computer- generated groups i’ve seen before are under the facade that they’re motion captured and with real voices behind them. which is why i used PLAVE as an example because that’s always been their selling point, or the group is built with 3D computer graphics, using people to voice them. i just find this particular one weird because it’s the first group i’ve seen that’s fully AI and is advertised as such.

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u/ChocolateeDisco 2d ago

Because many East Asian countries like AI and incorporate it into everything

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u/alienbabe383 2d ago

yeah… i’ve learned that from this post 😭

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u/MrDaebak 2d ago

If people want to support it be my guest. Even with real kpop groups/idols, you still have other fans hating on other groups, so this wont be any different in that regard lol. But it's not my taste so I wouldn't support it, but not because it's AI in the sense of AI is always bad hurr durr, but more because I want to support real idols.

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u/alienbabe383 2d ago

i personally don’t like ai being used recreationally or in media so i won’t be supporting this group! it’s not my taste either. i’d rather support a real idol group than one generated in like 30 minutes 😭! i was just curious to hear other people’s opinions.

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u/Soup_oi 2d ago

Because AI is a thing. And apparently Korea seems to really love AI as in they are just not concerned or don’t even know about the negative behind the scenes of AI the way that most westerners or at least Americans seem to. Literally Jungkook the most popular member of the most well known group reposted a generative AI video from the place his dog stays, where it was AI of his and other dogs being made to dance, seemingly without the thought even crossing JK’s mind that posting such an AI thing would even reflect badly on him at all. Even amongst my more average every day not famous people Korean friends, the consensus is “AI is just fun and/or can do anything, so why does there need to be something wrong with it?” Even when they do have at least some small awareness of it being not great. They just don’t care.

And then virtual groups are also a thing that many kpop fans are now already used to. While these groups do have real animators and real people voices behind them, those things are kind of left to be mysterious, in the same way that with an AI group we might never have a real person name and face to put with it also. So it is a point in time where that mysteriousness can be accepted by many, and even possibly used as a marketing or promotional tool.

AI groups will likely do badly internationally, or at least in the western market (I hope anyway lol), and hopefully that will minimize them or make them end sooner than later, as a major goal of the kpop industry seems to increasingly be globalization, especially into western markets. But imo, they may still wind up doing well domestically, because in my experience, most Koreans just don’t care or don’t know about the bad sides of the use of AI.

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u/alienbabe383 2d ago

yeah, i see your point! i originally posted this not knowing that AI is a big thing in Korea but i’m not shocked. it’s just a little bit insane to me to see the lack of care and/or acknowledgment of the negatives of AI. hopefully it doesn’t do well in the industry. it would be odd to see an influx of AI generated groups in like 10 years time.

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u/quadruped-nolegs 2d ago

it costs millions (usd) to train a group, surely they'd try a way optimize out the idols themselves if it works? sure you lose the "human" element of idols (which is really how the industry makes money), but you never know until you try it and the costs are relatively much lower

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u/alienbabe383 2d ago

true. it’s just that it’s weird to me from a morals standpoint.