We couldn’t really picture Slash as someone who’d choose sitting in front of a screen to cranking out riffs.
The curly-haired Guns N’ Roses guitar legend has dismissed AI as “confusing and misleading” and suggests that it will lead to more music with the “same look or sound”.
Talking to the Battleground Podcast, he said, “I’m not super excited about this new development, only because I just know that people, for the most part, are gonna use it so much that it’s gonna be confusing and misleading.”
“There’s just gonna be too much of the same kind of look or sound for different things. I see it happening already.”
Having said that, he mentioned how he would love to see someone create something “unique and useful” with it. “I’m the guy that likes to go into a studio and record a band live and do it analogue. So the idea of AI, I can’t think of any application where it makes any sense to me for what it is that I do.
“I’m interested to see who comes up with something really great and unique and useful for me. But having AI reproduce anything or actually produce anything original in terms of music does not really thrill me.”
His comments come at a time of rising concern about the use of AI in music and the knock on effect it will have on artists’ rights. Last month over 200 artists, including Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder, Robert Smith and Nicki Minaj signed an open letter from the Artists Rights Alliance warning against the “predatory” use of AI in music and its “assault in human creativity”.
Some artists such as Wyclef Jean have entered into partnerships with tech firms like Google to use and promote their AI products. However, others have been more dubious about its benefits. In an interview with Guitar Player last year, Queen guitarist Brian May warned that “the potential of AI to cause evil is...potentially huge.”
Last week Slash revealed that Guns N’ Roses were “trying” to make a new album, which would be their first since they reunited in 2016 and the first featuring both their iconic frontman and guitarist for over thirty years. His most recent solo album Orgy Of The Damned, a blues cover project, was released earlier this month.
