Boy George is a proud AI user. During an appearance on the Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast, the Culture Club singer revealed that he frequently uses ChatGPT to help him write songs.
Videos by American Songwriter
The tool, he said, has “really helped me as a lyricist.”
“I’ve written like, five albums already with AI… AI is brilliant. Nothing to fear,” he said. “I say to everyone, ‘If you get replaced by a robot, you weren’t trying hard enough.’”
While Boy George said he “obviously” cares about people losing their jobs to AI, he argued that “there’s so many great things” about it.
“I have fantastic conversations with ChatGPT and I’ll say, ‘Oh that [lyric is] crap, that’s not what I would say,’” he said. “You can train it.”
“An artist like me, they try to force you to work in an old-fashioned way,” he added. “I’m ahead of them.”
AI in Music
Boy George isn’t alone in his use of AI tools.
Last year, Landr surveyed 1,200 musicians to find out how much they integrated AI into their creative process. Eighty-seven percent of those polled admitted to using AI as one of their creative methods.
Charlie Puth, for instance, recently joined an AI music app, Moises, as their Chief Music Officer.
“AI, when done right, isn’t here to replace musicians,” Puth said in a press release. “It’s here to help artists learn, explore, and bring their ideas to life.”
Other artists have been equally candid about their distaste for the tool.
“I cannot even wrap my head around the fact that we are creating our own demise,” Keith Urban told Dan Huff of the implications of AI. “It is insane. I hope that our point of view still matters.”
Meanwhile, in a statement to The Guardian, Paul McCartney said that “we[’ve] got to be careful about” using AI.
“It could just take over and we don’t want that to happen particularly for the young composers and writers [for] who, it may be the only way they[’re] gonna make a career,” he said. “If AI wipes that out, that would be a very sad thing indeed.”
Photo by Lorne Thomson/Redferns
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