In terms of songwriting, Sting has warned of an impending “battle” between humans and artificial intelligence. In an interview with the BBC, the former frontman of The Police discussed the rise of AI-driven songwriting and why he thinks it will never be able to equal music written by humans.
All The Difference
Sting had said: “The building blocks of music belong to us, to human beings.” Sting continued: “AI doesn’t impress me at all; it’s like the way I watch a movie with CGI. That’s going to be a battle we all have to fight in the next couple of years: Defending our human capital against AI. I get immediately bored when I see a computer-generated image,” he added. “I imagine I will feel the same way about AI making music. Maybe for electronic dance music, it works. But for songs, you know, expressing emotions, I don’t think I will be moved by it.”
That’s Some Timing
The remarks were made the same week that Spotify’s AI DJ, which uses artificial intelligence to identify customers’ listening patterns and recommend new music to them, was made available in the UK and Ireland. When Spotify first revealed its DJ feature in February, it touted it as a “personalized AI guide that knows you and your music taste so well that it can choose what to play for you.”
After utilizing AI to simulate what Oasis may sound like if they reformed and released a new album in 2023, a UK band went viral last month. The indie band Breezer produced the eight-track album, which they titled “AISIS,” adding an AI voiceover of Liam Gallagher to their original compositions. In other news, Universal Music Group deleted a Drake and The Weeknd AI-generated collaboration from all streaming services in April, while Nick Cave is yet another to criticize the technology.