Weird Al Yankovic has his limits and music generated by artificial intelligence (AI) is one of them. He wants nothing to do with it.
The five-time Grammy winner told Syracuse.com he’s “not down” with it, revealing he rejected “a nice pile of money” to star in an advertisement for an undisclosed AI company. He said:
I’m not a fan of AI. I was offered this commercial before the tour. I’m not going to mention any names, but they told me it was for a business.
It was business software that would increase productivity. And they offered me a nice pile of money. I said, ‘Oh well, yeah, sure, I could do that.’
[…]
And then a week before we’re supposed to shoot it, I find out, oh, this is, it’s AI. And I thought, ‘Oh no, I can’t be the poster boy for AI, forget it.’ So I felt bad about kind of pulling out at the last minute. But yeah, I’m not, I’m not down with that.
As Breitbart News reported, AI is shaking up the music world and Hollywood in equal measures with some seeing the end approaching for human creators.
Just last November, Billboard’s number one song on its “Country Digital Song Sales” chart was called “Walk My Walk” by a band called Breaking Rust, and, according to Billboard, Breaking Rust was created by AI.
Grammy-winning music producer and singer Jack Antonoff has since blasted what he called “Godless whores” who create art with AI. “By all means, drive right off that cliff,” the Bleachers frontman and frequent collaborator with Taylor Swift declared.
The White House senses what is approaching for creative industries and issued a framework of policies for AI on March 20 with the aim of establishing “uniform national standards for AI regulation while preempting states from enacting their own rules.”