Billy Corgan has spoken out against the use of artificial intelligence in music.
The Smashing Pumpkins lead singer voiced his opposition to AI in a recent interview with the And The Writer Is...podcast, describing the use of it as "a deal with the devil".
“You didn’t ask me, but I’m gonna make a declaratory statement. I refuse, refuse, patently refuse to use AI in my music creation,” Corgan stated. “Because, to me, it’s a deal with the devil. Simple".
“Whether it’s the Promethean fire myth or whatever, to me you’re literally leaning into the thing that will destroy you. Period,” he adds. “So that’s why I’m not gonna mess with it, because the pressure, the inspiration, the soul searching, the ‘I’m not sure I got anything else to say,’ that’s all part of the journey that a songwriter needs to go to".
Corgan goes on to say that by embracing AI, folks are “flirting with the thing that will destroy us as an economy, as a business, as a movement".
“We’re asking to be eradicated,” he adds. “But I’m saying, on a spiritual level to lean into it is to ask to be wiped out. You’re asking to be wiped out".
The use of AI may be more welcome in the world of cinema, after filmmakers managed to use generative AI to recreate the late Val Kilmer in the new historical drama, A Deep as the Grave. The film shows the late actor play Father Fintan, a Catholic priest and Native American spiritualist, a role which he was originally cast in prior to his death.
Kilmer passed away in April last year following a battle with throat cancer, having been previously diagnosed in 2014.
The late actor's family including his daughter, Mercedes backed the film's use of AI for this film, which used archival footage from his life, combined with the technology. Check this out here.
