Slash adds his voice to the growing concern that musicians have over the impact of AI
Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash has added his voice to the growing concern over the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the future of music.
Recently, a group of 200 artists including Pearl Jam, R.E.M., The Cure’s Robert Smith, Stevie Wonder, The Last Dinner Party, Billie Eilish and the estates of Frank Sinatra and Bob Marley signed an open letter titled Stop Devaluing Music, warning against the “predatory” use of AI, and its “assault on human creativity”.
While Slash isn’t quite as strong with his comments, he admits he’s not a fan of AI when it comes to music, saying the idea “doesn’t thrill me”.
He tells the Battleground Podcast: “I’m not super excited about this new development, only because I just know that people, for the most part, are gonna use it so much that it’s gonna be confusing and misleading.
“There’s just gonna be too much of the same kind of look or sound for different things. I see it happening already.”
Slash, who recently released new solo album Orgy Of The Damned, adds: “I’m the guy that likes to go into a studio and record a band live and do it analog. So the idea of AI, I can’t think of any application where it makes any sense to me for what it is that I do.
“And I’m interested to see who comes up with something really great and unique and useful for me. But having AI reproduce anything or actually produce anything original in terms of music does not really thrill me.
“You can have it write lyrics, you can have it do anything but you doing the actual work and it doesn’t thrill me.”
The use of AI has been a hot topic in the entertainment world in recent years, even before the recent statement from the group of 200 artists.
Discussing its potential with Guitar Player last year, Queen guitarist Brian May expressed fears as to where it might lead.
He said: “I think a lot of great stuff will come from AI, because it is going to increase the powers of humans to solve problems. But the potential for AI to cause evil is, obviously, incredibly huge – not just in music, ’cause nobody dies in music, but people can die if AI gets involved in politics and world domination for various nations.
“I think the whole thing is massively scary. It’s much more far-reaching than anybody realised – well, certainly than I realised.”
