ANDREA FERRO of LACUNA COIL About AI: “The Human Mistakes Are What Makes Art Unique”

AI is a very dangerous piece of technology that we know nothing about, and yet, businesses continue to employ the technology rather than the creatives and the people who it learns from – Lacuna Coil have said it before, and they’ll say it again.

From music magazines partnering with AI companies, to Spotify promoting AI bands, to musicians using AI for tour promotion, things are slowly and slowly becoming less real. And if I’m honest, it feels like the exact opposite of what people have been begging for – connection, relationships, humanity, authenticity.

Vocalist Andrea Ferro of Lacuna Coil offered his own two-cents about the ever growing presence of AI yet again, after doing so in March, saying that he thinks “the human mistakes are what makes art unique,” when talking to Neil Jones of TotalRock (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). He continued, “When you make a mistake and you go a direction you [weren’t] expecting to go, that’s where it gets interesting and curious and extreme. And so that’s the missing part for something artificial to be creative.”

But, Ferro balanced his own opinion with facts, stating that “you can’t fight the progress. Evolution is gonna come no matter what. But you can try to be smart about it. I’m not against artificial intelligence if it’s used as a tool to help you, to make your life easier, to make your life better. But don’t overuse it. I think there’s times to use it, there’s time not to use it. And it’s a thin line, which is not easy to understand for many people.”

As mentioned above, Ferro has spoken out against the use of AI before when speaking to Ghost Cult Magazine back in March, saying that AI should not be used in the creative process, and even dubbed it lazy to do so: “I think technology, as usual, is not good or bad. It depends the way you use it. If it’s an extra tool to make your life easier and faster, that’s okay. But if it has to substitute the creativity of a person, that I don’t like personally. I prefer to use human creativity because humans are great because they make mistakes, and from a mistake, usually that’s where great things happen….

I think human touch is very important. And there’s no need to use A.I. [art for album covers]. If you find the right artist, it’s not even that expensive. I think it’s reasonably expensive and it’s deserved and you can still make money on the merchandise and other things. So it’s an excuse for laziness to not use a real artist.”

And Ferro is far from the only musician concerned by AI – with Sir Brian May saying he feels the future is forever changed because of artificial intelligence, Jimmy Page has said he views it as plagiarism, and Dani Filth says AI is “shit,” alongside the numerous artists who have signed petitions and written open letters to their governments to restrict the capabilities of AI.

Because there’s really no telling what the future of AI holds for the music industry and our humanity, but it’s important that artists recognise how dangerous it is to their artform.