Peter Gabriel thinks musicians should “work with” AI
The lead singer behind the prog-rock group Genesis, Peter Gabriel, has come out to state that the industry should embrace AI, believing that such machines will be able to do most jobs in the coming decades.
Referring to Nick Cave’s opinion of AI, who recently called a song that was made by the programme in his own style a “grotesque mockery of what it is to be human”, Gabriel responded to the pertinent issue in a new issue of Uncut magazine, stating: “I think that’s a bit like King Canute on the beach, unfortunately. It’s coming. We’re only just building it, we have no idea what it’s going to achieve”.
Continuing, Gabriel added: “I can’t think of anyone whose job couldn’t be done better by Al in 10 year’s time, maybe five. For instance, when I drive down to the studio in my Tesla, the Tesla is doing a lot of the driving for me – but I’m still keeping my hands on the wheel. The same thing is going to happen more in any process, including creativity. With some of the AI, half the artists want to play with it and half want to shut it down. But I think you do better if you work with a powerful new tool, than just grumble or pretend it doesn’t exist”.
The Genesis frontman, who is set to release the album I/O later in 2023, has long held an interest in modern technologies, explaining: “My dad was an inventor, so I grew up believing we can create tools that will change our lives. We take it for granted that things like Google and Wikipedia are there, but how much has that changed all of our lives? Or the mobile phone, which was a by-product of the space race”.
Concluding his thoughts about the emergence of AI, he adds: “If we can get high-tech education and healthcare into the very poorest homes in the world, then we’ll have done a very fine thing”.
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