US man pleads guilty to defrauding music streamers out of millions using AI

Michael Smith, 52, charged after flooding platforms with thousands of AI songs and boosting them with botsA man has pleaded guilty to defrauding music streaming platforms and his fellow musicians out of millions in royalties by flooding the services with thousands of AI-generated songs – and using automated “bots” to artificially boost the number of listens into the billions.As part of a deal with federal prosecutors in ’s southern district, 52-year-old Michael Smith pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.