Nick Cave has taken aim at AI song generators such as Suno and, with his trademark eloquence, has calmly dispatched them.
The 69-year-old singer-songwriter was writing on the Red Hand Files on his website, a regular feature in which fans ask philosophical questions and Cave, like a modern-day Socrates, offers some sage words in return.
The subject of AI has come up before, but on this occasion two fans brought it up, with one, Catherine, asking “Are you a doomer or a boomer?”
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Cave replied by writing: “Artificial Intelligence, Catherine, may save the world, annihilate it, or do something in between. I don’t know. But song generator platforms are, in my view, indicators of this nascent technology’s demonic potential to hollow out human endeavour and sever our connection to the divine.
“They mock creation itself by rendering humanity unnecessary, taking the fruits of human striving and reducing them to mere products. It is, perhaps, our final, most soul-destroying humiliation.”
An adjacent question came from Nuno, who asked whether art can be separated from the artist. In return, Cave said: “Nuno, we cannot separate the art from the artists, for they are as inseparable as the waves from the sea they rise from. That may be an uncomfortable truth for some but, for me, the matter was settled. Until now.”
“With the advent of song generation platforms, the thorny issue has been upended. At last, the artist can be separated from the art. Not just that, the artist – that flawed, messy, broken, woeful, joyful problem – can be removed from the equation altogether, like so much dross.”
He then brought up the controversial AI platform: “Suno, the Great Cancellator, which has never loved or laughed or grieved, never experienced joy or loss or heartbreak, never felt boredom or its adjacent epiphany, produces an imitation of the soul – a song – in fifteen seconds flat. This is an affront to any songwriter who has lived and struggled in this world and earned the right to create a song.”
He concluded: “For those eager to rid the world of problematic artists – for these censorious forces remain persistent – it is surely cause for celebration, as these platforms promise to rid the world of artists altogether.”
Cave hasn’t always been this negative about the technology. Indeed, last year he allowed the filmmaker Andrew Dominik to use it in a new video to his 1986 track Tupelo. The clip, which shows still photos of Elvis ‘moving’, was described by the singer as “an extraordinarily profound interpretation of the song” and with it, “I felt my view of AI as an artistic device soften. To some extent, my mind was changed.”
Anyway, if the man’s engaging, nuanced take on our world is your bag, then you’ll be interested to know that the Bad Seeds leader has announced a solo North American ‘Conversations With Nick Cave: An Evening Of Talk And Music’ tour for next spring.
