Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech For quite some time now, human musicians have watched in horror as AI-generated slop has started drowning out their work on streaming platforms. Companies like Spotify have discovered entire networks of bots that were designed to fraudulently boost the listenership of AI-generated music, a bizarre scheme essentially involving bots listening to bot music to capture royalties that could’ve otherwise been paid out to real human artists. The problem has been around for years — but prosecutors are finally catching onto the dubious scheme and putting those running the bot farms to justice. In a Department of Justice press release, the Southern District of New York attorney Jay Clayton announced that North Carolina native Michael Smith had plead guilty for creating “hundreds of thousands of songs with AI” and using “automated programs called ‘bots’ to fraudulently stream his AI-generated songs billions of times.” The goal was to “mimic the genuine streaming activity of real consumers,” ultimately allowing him to …