Artificial intelligence (AI) and its usage within the realm of entertainment has been an incredibly hot topic, especially within the music scene. Whether you’ve seen the countless times artists utilizing AI for their visuals in videos and album art or big news like ImOliver, who uses the AI program Suno to make music, getting a record deal with Hallwood, we’re in a very peculiar spot. Not all hope is lost, though, as more and more artists become vocal in how AI’s a driving force behind the lack of respect artists get in creating their art. Still, you can’t win them all judging by the latest stance given by Nothing More’s Jonny Hawkins.
The music video for their latest track “Existential Dread” utilizes AI. Naturally, this drew backlash from the fans, to which the frontman was willing to engage in conversation about via Instagram.
“AI isn’t a danger to good artists, only shitty ones,” Hawkins claims. “Good artists know that tools evolve and they evolve with them.”
While this is true, there’s something to be said about how generative AI’s usage has been nothing short of malicious towards creators. Thousands of artists have had their work used as examples to train AI on to the point where they had to come up with ways to “poison” their works as protection against it. This goes for music as well; since AI has to learn in order to create, you bet some of your favorite artists are getting their music trained on and ripped off for some AI-music-loving sloth to pump and dump onto Spotify playlists. He also brought up the “learn to code” initiative, which puts a further dent in his logic considering that’s still a field of human capability and intelligence, not just typing things out and letting the program do the rest for you like generative AI does.
Hawkins also went on to clarify that, despite the AI usage, the band did work with a director to map out ideas, the concept and its execution.
“I had concepts I shared with him … We bounced creative ideas back and forth on multiple calls. … He story-boarded, generated and edited multiple versions together like we do with almost every project we take on. …The vision dictates the medium and tools that we use.”
A big talking point in the controversial reliance on AI is that because it’s not created by human hands, it’s not capable of replicating the charms and soul of a creation made by a human. To this, Hawkins said:
“This logic is flawed. There is a huge difference between letting a machine create something and using a machine to create something,” and then brought up Nine Inch Nails as an example of prolific artists who use machinery in their sound.
We can UNO Reverse that right back to them. Yes, NIN used different means and methods of technology to craft their sound and convey the emotions they do in their music. However, this is still all done by human hands. Trent Reznor is not sitting at a desk, firing up some AI program, and typing in a number of commands and prompts to make his vision come true. His work came through hands-on learning and tinkering to find the best ways to execute his vision. That is what the supporters of AI do not understand and, quite frankly, probably won’t ever grasp. Unfortunately that ends up playing right into the hands of the companies hyping up AI as well. Those people want you out of a job and out of opportunities because they do not take you or your craft seriously, they would rather preach “anybody can do it!” by leeching off your work and passing it off as their own with about 0.005% as much effort.
One thing Hawkins said that stood out was that if AI reaches a point where it’s able to “connect with people authentically, writes as good of songs with nuance, and perform them in a way that satisfies people the way a real human can, then it deserves to take my job.”
Sure, the band with a massive career that just fine, you’re in a far more comfortable position than others. No other musician is deserving of that just because people like you won’t stand up for real art. Nobody in the workforce deserves to be at risk of losing their jobs because their cheap, lazy higher ups would rather move towards AI than foster a genuine environment. With the way the industry and the world is moving, you’d better be careful what you wish for. It's not like arena rock is hard to replicate.
