Slash’s less-than-enthusiastic take on artificial intelligence in music

The debate over the use of artificial intelligence in music is still going strong. The tools can be used to perfectly emulate the voices of great artists in songs they never recorded, compose entire albums from a simple algorithm execution or other more technical forms of exploration, such as “cleaning” records with noise or something similar.

slash doesn’t seem at all excited about what technology can offer. In an interview with Battleground Podcast (via Blabbermouth), the guitarist of Armas e Rosas was asked to give his opinion, specifically, on people who use AI tools to generate melodies, harmonies and rhymes.

As expected, the demonstration was not positive. For him, it was something “confusing and misleading”.

I’m not too excited about this new development. I know people are going to use it so much that it’s going to… on the one hand, it’s going to be confusing and misleading. And then there’s going to be a lot of the same kind of look or sound for different things. I can already see that.

In general, slash He considers himself an “old-school” musician, the kind who still goes into the studio and records his songs live with a band, in an analog format. Even before the expansion of artificial intelligence tools, this practice was relatively rare among artists, who usually record their work digitally, with each person involved in their own home.

I’m the guy who likes to go into the studio, record with a live band and do it analog, like my new blues album, Orgy of the Damned. I can’t think of any AI application where it makes any sense for what I do. And I’m interested to see who comes up with something really great, unique, and useful for me.

Finally, the musician reinforced that he is not very excited about the idea of ​​artificial intelligence “reproducing something or producing something original in music”.

You can make it write lyrics, do anything that takes you away from the actual work, but that doesn’t excite me. Technology itself is a human achievement. It’s amazing. It always shows great possibilities with things. The problem is how people use technology, ultimately, as a mass application. That’s where you need to start worrying.

Duff easy

As slashmany artists are expressing concerns about the advancement of this type of technology. But the guitarist’s bandmate, Duff McKagandoesn’t seem to be that worried — at least when it comes to his own work.

In an interview with NMEthe bassist of Armas e Rosas He said he doesn’t intend to let tools like artificial intelligence affect his creativity. He doesn’t even intend to try any kind of program that offers this kind of possibility.

There will always be guys like me who will just throw up their middle finger. They will keep creating their own stuff and not even pay attention to it, really. I don’t pay attention to it. I’m not worried about it. It’s not going to affect my creativity.

McKagan made it clear that he is living such a good moment in his life and career that he doesn’t even need to think about alternatives to make his work easier. The simple fact of having a good support network at home has allowed him to develop his most recent solo album, Lighthousewhere, curiously, the topic of mental health is addressed in depth.

I have a really good situation at home… having that ease at home and that support has really done wonders for me. That tenderness, that passion and that sense of roundness, love and harmony, coupled with that deep kind of punk rock sensibility has created this incredible and unique sound in Lighthouse.

Other opinions

One of the biggest names in music who has not held back on criticizing the use of artificial intelligence in this area is Ed Sheeran. In an interview with Audacity (via American Songwriter), the owner of hits like “Thinking Out Loud” It is “Shape of You” used fiction to say that people should be aware of the possible problems caused by the indiscriminate use of technology.

The thing I don’t understand about AI is that for the last 60 years, Hollywood movies have been saying, ‘Don’t do it.’ And now everyone’s doing it. And I’m like, ‘Haven’t you seen the movies where they kill us all?’ And also, I just don’t know why you need it – if you’re taking a human being’s job, I think it’s probably a bad thing. The whole point of society is that we all do jobs. If everything is done by robots, everyone’s going to be out of work.

In an interview with Kerrang! Radio (via Blabbermouth), the lead singer of Slipknot, Corey Taylorfollowed a similar line of reasoning. For him, AI is just a comfortable evolution of other tools that correct out-of-tune voices or poor performances.

To be honest, I don’t give a damn about any of this. I don’t know what people are trying to prove. Are they trying to prove that computers can do things just as well as people? Because if so, then what’s the point? An even worse example of technology replacing talent than I’ve been complaining about for years with Pro Tools, tuning and using the same sounds. And people keep saying, ‘Oh, isn’t that cool?’ No, it’s not cool. Are you crazy?

Another great contemporary heavy metal vocalist to demonstrate his opinion on artificial intelligence is M. Shadows. The frontman of Avenged Sevenfoldhowever, completely disagrees with Taylor and says that she would even be happy to give up her voice so that technology can create music and performances from it.

Outside of the heavy sound, the alternative idol Nick Cave demonstrated to have a positioning similar to that of Taylor. For him, AI has nothing to do with art, as composing music is a deeply human act.

Guitarist of the Queen and science enthusiast — not for nothing, a PhD in astrophysics —, Brian May I told Guitar player who has a series of concerns around the topic.

“We won’t know what the path forward is. We won’t know what was created by AI and what was created by humans. It’s all going to get very confusing. I think we can look back on 2023 as the last year that humans really dominated the music scene.” […] The potential for AI to cause harm is, of course, enormous. Not just in music, because no one dies in music, but people could die if AI gets involved in politics and the world domination of nations.”