Marty Friedman Says AI is Inevitable: “Its Best Years Are Yet to Come”
Former Megadeth axeman and all-around guitar master Marty Friedman is the latest musician to share his opinion about the presence of artificial intelligence in music and, to be honest, it’s one of the more rational ones I’ve heard so far. The guitarist tells the interviewer with Australian Musician (via Blabbermouth) that he believes there has to be a bright side to AI and points out that new recording technology is also often derided by people who prefer the old ways of doing things.
“There’s gotta be something positive in it. And regardless of whether we’re fearful of technology or not, it’s gonna be a reality — period. So I think we can fight it all the way and there’s been guys in the music business fighting analog and digital forever.
“It’s kind of nostalgic to think of the days when everything was analog and you sat down and you listened to a whole album from beginning to end and it’s wonderful and people can still enjoy that, but technology has allowed you and I to talk like this, technology has allowed Pro Tools to happen, which has created some of the best ideas for recording in history.”
Ultimately, Friedman says that Pandora’s box is already open and you can’t contain what’s been let out. He’s also not really afraid of being made obsolete at this point in time.
“We just can’t fight it all the way because it’s like spitting against heaven; it’s not gonna mean anything. So AI, I think its best years are yet to come. It hasn’t really done anything that’s kicked my ass yet. Of what I’ve seen, it’s just been kind of cute little funny little mashups and stuff, nothing I’d want to sit down and listen to an album of, but technology and AI and all that stuff is a reality. It’s not going away, for better or for worse. So the sooner we accept it and accept how we can not only live with it, but benefit by it, the healthier we can all enjoy our lives rather than being some old guy just saying, ‘I hate this stuff.’ It’s really easy to fall into that, especially from people of a previous generation, because we know how good it was back then. There’s a lot of crap now because of technology, and it’s easy to hate on all that stuff, but it’s not going away. So what’s the benefit in being negative about it?”
What do you think? Friedman might be right but it might be too early to tell.
