As a musician, I kinda like this 'AI guitar' — but only if the AI's ethical (www.techradar.com)

The TemPolor Melo-D guitar, touted as the "world's first generative AI guitar," has launched on Kickstarter, aiming to revolutionize music creation by transforming melodies sung or played by users into complete tracks, complete with backing tracks and AI-generated vocals. Priced at an early bird rate of $379, the device resembles a more sophisticated Guitar Hero controller and features an intuitive design with colored LEDs to guide beginners, alongside a companion app that generates music from user inputs. Significantly, the Melo-D taps into the contentious debate surrounding generative AI in music. While it promises creativity through its use of royalty-free music for training its AI models, the company also mentions employing select third-party AI models. This raises ethical concerns, as many musicians worry about the potential misuse of their work for AI training without consent or compensation. Thus, while the Melo-D offers innovative tools for music-making, the question of its ethical implications looms large in the AI/ML community, prompting important discussions around copyright and fair compensation for artists.