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will.i.am Sees A Future Where AI Is ‘The Group’ In Hip-Hop: ‘The Machine Is Gonna Do Everything’

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will.i.am has long held a reputation for being at the forefront of innovation in music. The Black Eyed Peas frontman has been quick to embrace technology, from a Bluetooth face mask to an AI-powered messenger platform for artists to collaborate. And as AI has come to dominate the discussion of the musical landscape, it’s only natural that will has some strong opinions on where the technology is headed.

will shared those views with UPROXX at the launch of his FYI messaging platform, giving his candid view and explaining why he thinks “the machine is gonna do everything.” Comparing AI to well-worn tools in hip-hop like turntables and beat machines, he envisions a future where AI is not just “the group” — writing, producing, and “performing” the music — but also the marketing, legal, and accounting departments, ensuring that algorithms maximize the efficiency of every aspect of the music industry, essentially replacing human beings in most fundamental positions, save for one.

“The future of popular music isn’t people,” he predicts. “But the future of social activism around music, that’s the only way I think we are still going to be needed.” He suggests such artists as Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Public Enemy, and Stevie Wonder as examples before warning that creating music to feed recommendation algorithms is going to become impossible. “The algorithm will out-algorithmic you.”

The antidote, he says, will be to create “organic” music that taps into human emotions more effectively than the machine-created variety. The future is full of possibilities and not all of them are particularly appetizing, but there’s no question: The genie is out of the bottle, and there’s no going back. will.i.am knows this and remains on the cutting edge, whether that’s pushing the genre into new markets like Formula 1 racing or just continuing to contribute his unique viewpoint in songs like “The Formula” with Lil Wayne.

Watch will.i.am break down the future of AI in music above.

AI Wrote A Truly Bizarre Rap As Meek Mill’s Dead Father And It Left The Rapper Saying ‘WTF’

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Artificial intelligence has progressed rapidly in recent times and has therefore increasingly found its way into our everyday lives. Meek Mill had an encounter with AI recently and it left him scratching his head.

Late last night/early this morning (May 10), he tweeted, “Ai wrote a rap about my dad and this what he said WTF.”

The tweet included a video of an apparently AI-generated rap song, called “Back From The Grave” and credited to Big Robbie; Meek’s father, Robert Parker, died from a gunshot wound when Meek was a child, which Meek rapped about on “Traumatized.”

The lyrics of the AI song go, “I died in a shootout, just tryin’ to feed my fam / But death couldn’t stop me, I’m back in the lab / My son Meek Mill, he’s the light of my life / Gotta watch over him, I’m back from the afterlife / I’m Big Robbie and I’m back with a plan / I’m comin’ back to life to see my fam / My soul’s come alive, I’m gonna make it right / Back from the grave, I’m gonna fight the fight.”

Check out the AI track above.

Meek Mill is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Timbaland Never Got To Work With The Notorious BIG So He Used AI To ‘Collaborate’ With Him Instead

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Over the past few years, rap fans have unfortunately gotten plenty of calls to debate the ethics of posthumously releasing an artist’s works — especially when it comes to collaborations that the artist may not have approved. With the advent of AI technologies that reproduce artists’ voices and likenesses, that debate has heated up a lot lately.

The latest figure in hip-hop to join the debate is Timbaland, who used AI to “collaborate” with The Notorious B.I.G. — someone he never got the chance to work with in real life before Biggie died. He shared part of the song, in which Big’s voice shouts out artists he never lived to see such as Nipsey Hussle and Young Dolph, on Instagram, saying:

We know that it’s a lot of talk about AI and we know how the feelings of violating certain things. But let me tell you something: I got a solution, I’m working on it. It’s gon’ be beneficial to everybody. I gotta share something I’ve been working on because I always wanted to do this and I never got a chance to. I always wanted to work with Big and I never got a chance to.

Fans on social media have received the “collaboration” with some trepidation — people who pay for Twitter Blue aside — pointing out that although the machine-learning algorithm can reproduce Christopher Wallace’s voice, Tim’s still just talking to a computer simulacrum.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek Believes AI Is ‘Huge For Creativity’ But Acklowledges ‘The Scary Part’

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AI recreations of popular musicians’ voices have become a rising trend, with Drake and The Weeknd’s fake “Heart On My Sleeve” song being pulled from streaming platforms, Grimes saying she’s OK with it, and Liam Gallagher calling an Oasis AI album “mega.” Still, Spotify’s CEO, Daniel Ek, offered his thoughts on just what this means for the future of the music industry,

“On the positive side, this could be potentially huge for creativity,” Ek said on a conference call, according to Billboard. “That should lead to more music [which] we think is great culturally, but it also benefits Spotify because the more creators we have on our service the better it is and the more opportunity we have to grow engagement and revenue.”

Earlier this year, the streaming service announced an AI DJ aspect to the app, which develops song recommendations for users based on their listening history and features narration from an AI bot.

“I’m very familiar with the scary part… the complete generative stuff or even the so-called deep fakes that pretend to be someone they’re not,” Ek added during a recent episode of Spotify’s For The Record podcast. “I choose to look at the glass as more half-full than half-empty. I think if it’s done right, these AIs will be incorporated into almost every product suite to enable creativity to be available to many more people around the world.”

Currently, Universal Music Group and the National Music Publishers’ Association are some standing against AI, as the record label released a recent statement to the publication:

“The training of generative AI using our artists’ music (which represents both a breach of our agreements and a violation of copyright law) as well as the availability of infringing content created with generative AI on DSPs, begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or on the side of deep fakes, fraud and denying artists their due compensation. We’re encouraged by the engagement of our platform partners on these issues – as they recognize they need to be part of the solution.”

Khalid Has ‘Mixed Feelings’ About AI-Generated Songs, Which Take Away The ‘Authenticity’ Of Human Artists

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As the debate about the value and utility of AI in music continues, another artist has added his voice to the conversation. Khalid, who most recently released new music last month with “Softest Touch,” was asked about his view of the situation by TMZ. His response was ambivalent; while he sees worth in AI as a tool, he sounds unimpressed by all the AI-generated reproductions of established artists that have been sweeping the internet lately.

“I have mixed feelings about it,” he said. “I feel like AI is definitely going to be a helpful tool and it’s one of those things that you can’t escape. Hopefully, you know, I get to still have my job for a long time… I feel like it takes away the authenticity and that’s something that I really value about myself.” With regard to AI “resurrecting” deceased artists for collaborations with contemporary idols, he said, “I respect all the music for what it is and I think I’m fine. I appreciate the legends as they are.”

As AI has become more commonplace in recent months, much like the popularity of NFTs a couple of years ago, some artists have encouraged its use, while others have floated the idea of using legal measures to curtail AI’s spread. Grimes and Liam Gallagher were some of the notable proponents of the technology, while Universal Music Group issued a sternly-worded statement about AI’s use cutting into artists’ profits — and notably, labels’ profits as well.