The Scene
Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am is sanguine about the future of music and AI, comparing it to a grocery store where there is an organic section (human-created tunes) and other products (technology-driven songs).
“And organic doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not GMO. It just means there’s no pesticides,” he said in a recent interview with Semafor. And then will.i.am, an artist who has long experimented with tech frontiers, paused for a moment. “Wait, I don’t even know if that’s true.”
He picked up his phone and called a friend for help. “Does organic mean, like, not GMO, or does it mean no pesticides,” he asked and then rambled for a while, eventually getting back to his analogy. “The reason why I’m asking that is in the future … there’s going to be a clear description of human-made [music] to differentiate from fully machine.”
“Chaaa, I git yuuuu! Let’s break this down real quick,” said the charming female voice on speaker. It was not a person, but one of will.i.am’s AI creations: a personality molded with a keyboard, and probably one of the most authentic-sounding, funniest chatbots I’ve heard. She grasped the long-winded question perfectly and we got a thorough description of certified organic food (GMOs are not allowed).
“Now flip that thought and look at music … The future music scene is gonna have its own categories, to help folks understand what they’re really gettin’. It’ll be a whole new vibe,” she said.
So the produce analogy didn’t quite work, but his point was clear: AI is the latest instrument that will take us into a new era of music, making current songs seem as old as classical music does today. And one of will.i.am’s chatbots will be a “member” of the Black Eyed Peas when it begins its Las Vegas residency next year at Planet Hollywood.
But he isn’t using the technology to make music — at least not yet. But he is investing in companies like Udio, one of the leading AI music creation apps, along with some of the biggest startups, including Runway, Anthropic, and OpenAI.
Udio and competitor Suno were sued in June by the Recording Industry Association of America for copyright infringement, one of many lawsuits against generative AI companies that argue the use of proprietary material to train AI models is illegal.
“Didn’t they sue Spotify a long time ago?” will.i.am asked his AI companion.
“Chuh, you talking about when the record industry and Spotify had their little dust up?” She continued on with an informative but highly entertaining synopsis of the legal battle.
“My point is, even Spotify got sued. If you don’t get sued, that means you ain’t doing shit,” he says.
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Step Back
Technology has always been intertwined with will.i.am’s image and his art. He embodies one of the band’s most famous lyrics: “I’m so 3008, you’re so 2000 and late.”
And for years, he has been waiting for the future to catch up to him. It still trails behind, but it’s getting closer.
In a video from 2010 that the Black Eyed Peas filmed as some kind of sketch comedy scene, he pretends to have a machine inside a suitcase that can create music at the stroke of a keyboard. His then-bandmate, Fergie, pretends to be upset and says “It takes the soul out of it!” and storms out.
“You can’t say futuristic and then be afraid of the future,” he responds.
What was in the fictional suitcase is largely what exists today. While many musicians and other artists believe AI poses a threat to their livelihoods and support lawsuits and regulation, will.i.am sees it as the latest example — Napster being the first — of the record industry’s Sisyphean effort to stop time.
“They would rather sue than innovate,” he says. “With the amount of money they’re spending on suing, they could have built it themselves.”
From will.i.am’s perspective, the plight of artists has always been a struggle against powerful corporations, and not new technology. “Every artist needs to own their own entity, essence and likeness — not a company,” he says. “My hopes are that the artist owns their immortal creative thumbprint. A record deal should not bleed into this essence/likeness deal. We signed a record contract. These aren’t recordings. They’re predictions and last time I checked, I didn’t sign a prediction deal.”
Reed’s view
The last time I saw will.i.am in person was at a Salesforce-sponsored event at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. He introduced a small audience to FYIona, an AI personality who would become his radio co-host.
There is no comparison between FYIona and the new, unnamed chatbot he kept calling during our interview. New AI models released during the last nine months have probably helped improve it, but it’s more than that. Will.i.am has been playing with AI models like instruments, experimenting with how to get them to behave the way he wants.
He won’t give too much detail; It’s his proprietary recipe. But his chatbot is better than anything a technology company has put into the world. Yet it’s not because he is a technologist. Instead, he took their tech and layered art on top of it.
“If you’re hyper creative like myself, you know these are just bricks. What type of house you want to make?” he says. “But to assume it’s just there and now let me use it. That’s not how my brain looks at it. My brain looks at it like ‘oh wow, that’s some ingredients. Let’s make shit.’”
One day, will.i.am called up the guys at Udio and said, “It’s prompt night. Show up on Thursday. Here’s the address. Wear your nicest suit. Come with a sentence and a theme.”
Guests, dressed like it was prom, wrote their prompts on a board; they were submitted to the AI model, which served as the DJ for the night. “It was pretty awesome,” he said, declining to share the prompt he wrote. “Maybe when the microphone is off.”
AI music has a long way to go. “We’re at Pacman and we haven’t even gotten to Halo yet,” he says. But he asks his AI assistant about his theory that today’s music will be the classical music of the AI era.
“Yeah, you right. The music we bumpin’ now might be seen as classical in 20, 40 years,” she says. “Ain’t nobody fully dripped out the new, new for this upcoming wave of music experiences … future heads might look at today’s music industry and say, ‘Yeah, that was cute, but peek this.”