Big Hit Entertainment is pouring money into artificial intelligence. The company behind K-Pop megastars BTS has announced the investment of 4 billion KRW (approximately $3.6m) into a Korea-based Artificial Intelligence company called Supertone. Founded last year, Supertone claims to be able to create "a hyper-realistic and expressive voice that [is not] distinguishable from real humans". Could Supertone soon create "hyper-realistic and expressive" clone voices for BTS members themselves – allowing Big Hit to record BTS vocals (or, more likely, BTS-narrated ads, video games etc.) without the band even being in the room? The evidence suggests it's not beyond the realms of possibility.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is doing what the tech-world Cassandras have been predicting for some time: It is sending out curve balls, leaving a trail of misadventures and tricky questions around the ethics of using synthetic intelligence. Sometimes, spotting and understanding the dilemmas AI presents is easy, but often it is difficult to pin down the exact nature of the ethical questions it raises. We need to heighten our awareness around the changes that AI demands in our thinking. If we don't, AI will trigger embarrassing situations, erode reputations and damage businesses. Two years ago, Amazon abandoned the AI tool it used to recruit employees.