Artificial Intelligence has become a point of contention for a lot of people largely because the technology is rapidly becoming more and more a part of our lives despite still being in its relative infancy. The use of AI in music has also become a hot debate with musical purists decrying it as unoriginal and a cheap and perhaps dangerous way to create.
Cradle Of Filth’s Dani Filth, Stryper’s Michael Sweet, former Machinehead guitarist Phil Demmel, Alice In Chain’s Jerry Cantrell and Accept’s Wolf Hoffman, among others, have all warned of the dangers of AI as it relates to creating music.
Recently, System Of A Down frontman Serj Tankian released a new video for his song “Cartoon Buyer” that was entirely done in AI. “Happy Holidays to you all,” he wrote. “As a special treat this year, I wanted to share this alternate music video for “Cartoon Buyer” from the Foundations EP. It’s completely created in AI by John Marr and @spectavo – We told him to let his imagination run wild and he went for it…”
Tankian’s post was met with several detractors on X. The entire thread of criticism can be viewed here, but some comments included: “Why are you promoting AI slop?” “This is like if you found out Zack de la Rocha made a commercial for Lockheed Martin.” “Best experienced with your eyes closed.”
Another X user posted: “Serj, our beloved, please don’t do this. Gen Ai is trained on other artists artworks without their permission, takes jobs away from creators, and is horrible for the environment. It aids capitalism in taking the joy, love, dedication, and care away from art.”
Another wrote: “Shi* like this is why you haven’t released a good album in over a decade, Serj- you’re spineless.”
The video can be viewed below.
