This may well be the dystopian future of fandom “In many ways for us it’s helpful. It was helpful when we did Now and Then. John is there because of AI,” said Ringo Starr last week, referring to former bandmate John Lennon on last new Beatles recording Now And Then.
“In many ways for us it’s helpful. It was helpful when we did Now and Then. John is there because of AI,” said Ringo Starr last week, referring to former bandmate John Lennon’s Artificial Intelligence-enhanced voice on a track rescued from a grainy demo cassette and released as “the last Beatles song” last November. “So we have to thank [AI] for that.”
Starr was answering a question I’d put to him about technology and the future of pop stardom on a transatlantic Zoom Q&A session to promote his new EP, Crooked Boy. He’s well aware of the alarm that AI generates. “I know there’s a lot of fear out there that it’ll steal your soul,” Starr said, “but I won’t steal anybody’s soul, so you’re OK.”
The fact that the 83-year-old former drummer of The Beatles is extolling the virtues of AI is proof of how deeply the technology is penetrating the music industry. But using AI to digitally spruce up vocals – as in Lennon’s case – is nothing compared to the latest technological frontier that is opening up: using AI to create talking clones of musicians so they can interact with their adoring fans. Some experts believe so-called “deepfake” stars represent the future of pop fandom. And the industry is getting excited about it.
This brave new world is already upon us. Last month Cheltenham-born musician FKA Twigs said that she had created a deepfake computer-generated version of herself using AI. She said the deepfake, which she dubbed “AI Twigs”, is trained on her personality and can use her exact tone of voice to speak in many languages including French, Korean and Japanese.
