“Its intent is to completely sidestep the sort of inconvenience of the artistic struggle": Nick Cave on AI in music

The creative use of AI continues to divide musicians. Nick Cave has previously been critical of the use of Chat GPT in songwriting , but in a new interview with The Australian , the singer has expanded on his problems with it and his fears of the impact it will have on the creative industries.

“Its intent is to completely sidestep the sort of inconvenience of the artistic struggle," he says, "going straight to the commodity, which reflects on us, what we are, as human beings, which is just things that consume stuff. We don’t make things any more. We just consume stuff. It’s frightening."

He continued: “I’m an enormously optimistic person about the world in general, but I think the demoralising effect or the humiliating effect that AI will have on us as a species, it will stop us caring about something like the artistic struggle that we will just accept what is fed to us through these things.”

The Bad Seeds leader says that humans could be “becoming in awe of the banal”, and then went on to cite AI music generator Suno, labelling it as “utterly banal” with “no soul or spirit”.

“I find it all unbelievably disturbing. I’m not worried about my own job or something like that about being replaced or something. Just what it’s saying about us as human beings,” he concluded.

In 2023, Cave lambasted the use of ChatGPT in lyric writing on his blog The Red Hand Files . A fan contacted him via the site and showed him some lyrics the program had ‘written’ in his style. Cave was not impressed. “Thanks for the song,” he wrote. “But with all the love and respect in the world, this song is bullshit, a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human”.

In March he was interviewed by the New Yorker and again criticised its use. “It is more a kind of sad, disappointed feeling that there are smart people out there that actually think the artistic act is so mundane that it can be replicated by a machine. I find that insulting.

“Maybe AI can make a song that’s indistinguishable from what I can do. Maybe even a better song. But, to me, that doesn’t matter – that’s not what art is,” he said. “AI may very well save the world, but it can’t save our souls. That’s what true art is for. That’s the difference. In my humble opinion ChatGPT should just fuck off and leave songwriting alone.”

Cave is gearing up for the release of Wild God on August 30. It will be his 18th album with the Bad Seeds and their first for five years since 2019’s Ghosteen. The band’s European tour kicks off on 24 September in Oberhausen, Germany, and includes a date at London’s O2 in November.