Ian Hill has shared his thoughts on artificial intelligence, and it seems that he is not afraid of it.
In a recent interview with Radiocast BG, the Judas Priest bassist was asked how he believes heavy metal music and the metal community can address the effects of artificial intelligence in music. He said it was different for both live shows and studio recordings:
“I just think that artificial intelligence can’t really perform live. I mean, this is what it’s coming down to. A lot of music, especially in the pop world these days, is a little bit on the false side — people mime to it and what have you. And A.I. can’t even do that. You can’t have artificial intelligence standing on stage. That ain’t gonna work. So, from a recording point of view, yeah, they might fool people — they might fool a hell of a lot of people — but, actually, when they say there’s a band playing live, that’s gonna be the acid test, isn’t it?”
He then gave an example of a thing AI could do but then remembered it has been done by another band:
“And I can’t see, really, unless they’re all holograms standing up there. — which has been done. What am I saying? ABBA have just done it, haven’t they? But it’s there. It is advertised. You know it ain’t ABBA. It’s trickery. But it’s in the live performance where it’ll fall down and it won’t stand up to scrutiny, I don’t think.”
Other Rockers Think The Same
Hill isn’t the only rocker who isn’t afraid of the effects of AI in the music industry. Just recently, the Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt shared similar comments in a conversation with Metal Journal. He predicted that AI would aim for perfection, but rock music relies on its flaws and imperfections:
“Rock and roll, to me, is, is always there because it’s broken. It’s not artificial. It’s not perfect. It’s all the imperfections, is what makes us shine. It’s the danger of it. A.I. can do all you want — to write lyrics, to write song, to do whatever, even record, to do whatever — but it’s always gonna sound sterilized, even when they try…”
He even named Led Zeppelin for not playing the same every time they got on stage:
“Because even if they tried to sound like, let’s say, I don’t know, Led Zeppelin… Led Zeppelin didn’t even sound like Led Zeppelin every night. Sometimes they were great, sometimes they were sloppy, sometimes it was amazing, and that’s the danger, and that’s the thing of rock and roll that you will never be able to capture with A.I. I don’t give a f*ck how much they’re gonna try.”
You can watch the recent interview below.