AI country hit ‘Walk My Walk’ sparks backlash in Nashville

The saga of “Walk My Walk” shows how fast generative AI is moving from tech demo to culture flashpoint. An AI‑assisted act topping even a niche Billboard chart is symbolically huge for an industry that trades on authenticity and human storytelling. The Post’s interviews capture the split between artists who see AI as a terrifying competitor and those who already use tools like Suno or ChatGPT as writing aids while trying to preserve a human core to their work. ([washingtonpost.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2025/12/28/breaking-rust-ai-country/))

For the AGI conversation, the episode is a microcosm of a larger shift: models are no longer just behind‑the‑scenes tools but branded “artists” with commercial success metrics. That raises thorny questions about attribution, royalties, and what constitutes fraud or impersonation—questions Tennessee has already begun to tackle with the Elvis Act protecting voice likenesses from AI cloning. ([washingtonpost.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2025/12/28/breaking-rust-ai-country/)) As AI systems become capable of end‑to‑end creative pipelines, more cultural domains will face the same angst Nashville is expressing now.

The deeper competitive angle is that culturally savvy, domain‑specific AI agents—ones that can write, perform and market within a genre—could become powerful distribution nodes for whatever models sit underneath. Whoever controls those agents will wield disproportionate influence over public perception of AI’s role in art, and thus over the political space for regulating or taxing synthetic media.