But as the band grew more popular, McInnis began seeing his own face on social media, doing things he never did. “There were full pages of us singing different songs, asking people on dates,” he says. “The captions would say: ‘If you’re single in this area, come hang out with me.’ We could tell it was AI-generated. But in the comments, you could see that people couldn’t tell.”
The scammers’ methods have succeeded in life-derailing ways. McInnis says that at every single Sons of Legion show, at least one person approaches him who believes—or once believed—that they were in a relationship with him, and had sent “him” thousands of dollars.
Read More: No, That AI-Generated Country Song Isn’t a No. 1 Hit
“Our fans are invested in us emotionally as a group. People are making friendships and meeting their lifelong partners within our fanbase,” says Daddy Jack, who is McInnis’s bandmate. “From a scammer's perspective, it's something that's very exploitable, because we're talking about honest people who wouldn't dream of scamming someone else in their lifetime.”
A screenshot of fake Sons of Legion accounts on Facebook. —Adam McInnis
Meta users are prohibited from impersonating others, according to the company’s policies. A Meta spokesperson told TIME that the company was investigating Sons of Legion scammers and taking action against violating assets. They also pointed to new efforts using AI to fight scammers.
These messages lead fans to believe they’re in a relationship with McInnis. So when the scammer asks them for thousands of dollars via cryptocurrency—whether to pay for tour expenses or hospital bills—they comply. McInnis says that the band’s choice to remain independent has given scammers a convenient excuse to ask for money from fans. “We have a lot of fans who understand that we’re taking a different direction. So when we reach out and say, ‘Can you give us a little bit of money,’ they want to support us,” he says.
The deluge of messages is making Sons of Legion’s true fans more reluctant to engage with the group online—which then hurts the band in the eyes of the algorithm. “I’m on my 14th ‘Adam’ over the past month,” wrote another fan. “They ask for money (cards) and try to convince you that they ‘love’ you and want to marry you and sometimes it turns to sexting.”
Arrigoni says that after a while, Sons of Legion’s scammers will get tired of creating new accounts for the band, and move onto impersonating a new band that doesn’t pay for protection services. “We’re playing whack-a-mole at an industrial level,” he says.
AI’s impact on other music income
The recommended artists on Sons of Legion’s Spotify page all have similar vibes at first glance: Their profile pictures show rugged men in cowboy hats staring moodily into the distance. But most of them—including Aventhis, Breaking Rust, Doc Raven, and Cain Walker—are AI.
AI bands suggested to Sons of Legion fans on Spotify.McInnis fears that the AI slop problem on Spotify will only get worse. “The goal for any company is ad revenue and retention time. If fans say, ‘we don't want AI, they'll have to take it down,” he says. “But because fans aren't saying that, they're going to keep it going. And over the next two years, we’ll get to the point where the average person will not know what’s real—and some won’t care, depending on their age.”
At the moment, Sons of Legion is still thriving musically, propelled by raucous concerts that have drawn packed houses across the continent. But McInnis is frustrated by having to fight AI slop at every turn. And he worries that the corporations that run the music industry aren’t doing enough to protect independent musicians from AI’s onslaught, threatening their ability to make a sustainable living.
“We are doing everything that we can do as individuals,” he says. “But the platforms are the ones who have to crack down on this stuff. And they're not going to do that unless they either have users leaving or they're getting less money.”
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