The use of AI in music has caused great division among musicians, with some calling it “disastrous” and others enthusiastically embracing the technology. For Avenged Sevenfold frontman Matt Sanders (aka M. Shadows), the question is not whether AI will gain traction in the music industry, but when.
“Do you think humans will care in 20 years whether music is composed by people or robots? “No, that’s not true.” decryption.
He ignored fans going out of their way to ‘support artists and buy records’ from human performers against AI. “No, it’s not like that.” He said. “All you care about is how you feel emotionally about something,” he says, adding that if listeners don’t know that AI was involved in composing the music, “you’re not going to feel the way a human would feel based on this algorithm.” “It is,” he added. “That’s the key.”
“We’re not that complicated,” he said. “And AI will be able to figure out what makes us move so fast.”
Sanders argued that using AI as a tool is no different from looking up a word in a thesaurus. Or “when you’re trying to find a word or a way to describe something,” it’s no different than using Google. As a composer, he said, “I use these kinds of things as tools to shape my imagination and bring the visualization of words on paper or in music to life.”
He said AI represents a “deeper tool” that can train on “data sets that might be every song you’ve ever written” and create something like yours.
In any case, Sanders said, AI’s Pandora’s box is wide open. “This is not really a bubble,” he said. “Bubbles happen when things get very speculative.” In his view, AI is expected to play a significant role in areas including “how we drive, how we interact with the internet, and how we interact with our phones.”
“There are so many ways we can have this conversation,” he said. “Is it replicating your voice? Are you copying your song? Do you use songs as a tool to write? Do I need to change the code?”
speaking decryptionOn the GM Podcast last year, Sanders suggested that fans could use AI trained on Avenged Sevenfold’s songs to produce their own records, adding, “I want to put my voice in a place where people can make their own versions of our songs and things like that.” I think they would be cool.”
In that respect, he echoed the views of Canadian electro-pop artist Grimes, who has already committed to a 50% royalty split with fans using their voices to create “successful AI-generated songs.”
Other examples of AI use include The Beatles, who used the technology to clean up John Lennon’s vocal track for their final song “Now & Then,” and Guns N’ Roses, who turned to AI to animate their latest music video. , “General.”
But not all musicians are so optimistic about the impact AI will have on their careers. Earlier this month, 200 musicians including Billie Eilish, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Pearl Jam, Jon Bon Jovi and Zayn Malik 50,000 people signed an open letter calling for an end to ‘irresponsible’ AI.
“This assault on human creativity must stop,” the letter from the Artist Rights Alliance reads. “We must protect against the predatory use of AI that steals the voices and likenesses of professional artists, violates creators’ rights, and destroys the music ecosystem.”
Sanders argued that fighting the invasion of AI is futile. “One of the things we’ve seen with the internet, streaming, video games, electric cars, every part of the internet that’s been invented is something we can never contain,” he said. “So you have to look through it. Like, where is this going? And how can we use that to our advantage?”
For the time being, human creativity still reigns supreme.
“I still believe artists should take us to places we’ve never been,” Sanders said. “AI isn’t necessarily there yet. “Maybe so.”
Editor: Andrew Hayward
