Blur’s Damon Albarn says “we’re gonna need more drugs to get through absurd AI”

Blur‘s Damon Albarn has hit out at AI, branding it “absurd”.

He criticised covers of the band’s hits featuring AI versions of Frank Sinatra, Michael Buble and Snoop Dogg.

Albarn told The Sun: “It’s absurd. Anyone who has so much time to sing songs through a Michael Buble filter and put them on the internet is a fucking idiot. If the AIs are the future of music, we’re gonna need better drugs to get us through it.”

His comments come after John Lydon shared his thoughts on AI earlier this week.

When asked about his views on its ever-increasing impact on the arts, the Public Image Ltd frontman said: “Who’s in charge and who’s feeding the information and giving the guidelines to these artifices? What or where is the moral code? It has infiltrated young people’s minds now to the point of total domination. What will this create?”

He continued: “My advice is make small steps against this – and get that fucking Siri or whatever out of your house. It will ultimately make decisions for you, and that’s very dangerous.”

Stereophonics frontman Kelly Jones also recently criticised the use of artificial intelligence in songwriting.

Jones said: “I’m not against forward-thinking technology and how things are progressing, but I think art should come from people, I mean the basics of it anyway. I think art has always been somebody’s expression, a real person’s expression from a heart, from a head.”

He added: “If you’re going to start an idea, then a computer finishes it, I mean, it’s OK, but it’s just about algorithms and things like that.”

Earlier this year, Nick Cave also called ChatGPT and AI songwriting “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human”.

Recently, Sting said AI “doesn’t impress” him and that songwriters will have to defend “our human capital against AI”. Smashing Pumpkins‘ Billy Corgan, however,  said “AI will change music forever” since others can “game the system” and “not going to spend 10,000 hours in a basement.”

Meanwhile, Albarn recently shared his love for Arctic Monkeys‘ Alex Turner, saying he sings “a lot like him” on the band’s new album ‘The Ballad Of Darren’.