Wolf Hoffmann believes that the AI may not have a big impact on popular artists, but it can still change the music industry. He told Chaoszine:
“Well, I used to say, ‘There’s nothing to worry about. I’m not afraid, and it’s just another tool.’ Until recently, I heard a bunch of songs that sort of blew my mind, where I thought like, ‘God damn. This is pretty scary good.’”
He explained:
“So, I’m thinking like, yeah, it’s gonna change stuff. Maybe, not so much for us because we’re an established band, and we have a fan base, and we have a long legacy. We’ve got all these studio albums. So, I don’t think our fans are gonna desert us just because AI is around. But, man, in general, it’s gonna have an impact.”
There Are Downsides To AI Use
Hoffmann previously admitted using AI for creating lyrics and finding it quite effective. He shared with Appetite For Distortion:
“I tried it for lyrical ideas, and it’s scary good, to be honest. You can just say, ‘Hey, write me a song lyric’ or something, [and] it spits out some pretty amazing stuff. But, of course, you have to say, ‘Is this really what I wanted to say? And is it me? Well, then how would I really say it?’ So you still have to tweak it and stuff. And we ended up never using any of it, but for songwriting and demoing stuff, I was quite intrigued; I found it intriguing.”
But the Accept guitarist highlighted that the technology might cause job losses in the industry. He also noted that its work is ‘not really, truly original’:
“AI doesn’t really think of this stuff. It just looks at all the other stuff that was created by people and turns it into a different, new version. It uses, in the case of music, for instance, existing songs and creates a new version kind of like it, but it doesn’t do it out of the blue sky; it looks at your stuff that somebody created. And there’s all kinds of legal issues that come up. So, I’m a little concerned about all that, yeah.”
Artists Want Protection Against AI
200 musicians signed a petition against AI-based music over copyrights and job loss concerns in early April. They demanded stricter regulations to protect ‘the rights of human artists’ through an open letter:
“When used irresponsibly, AI poses enormous threats to our ability to protect our privacy, our identities, our music, and our livelihoods. Some of the biggest and most powerful companies are, without permission, using our work to train AI models. These efforts are directly aimed at replacing the work of human artists with massive quantities of AI-created ‘sounds’ and ‘images’ that substantially dilute the royalty pools that are paid out to artists.”
The letter went on:
“For many working musicians, artists, and songwriters who are just trying to make ends meet, this would be catastrophic.”
Pearl Jam, Jon Bon Jovi, T-Rex, Greta Van Fleet, Sheryl Crow, Peter Frampton, R.E.M., Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello, and Frank Sinatra’s estate were among the rockers who signed.