AI Might Replace Songwriters, Artist - John Oates

John Oates, of the legendary duo Hall & Oates, has expressed his concerns about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) in the music industry.

"Look at what's coming in with AI, the possibility that AI is going to be replacing songwriters and artists for that matter," Oates said in an interview with Fox News Digital. 

"The idea that there could be a new… David Bowie album. AI could take David Bowie's voice and extrapolate and sample his music for his entire career and write new David Bowie songs, and the record company could put it out."

He continued, "A younger generation might not even know. They might not even know he's dead for that matter. It's a crazy future, and it’s a crazy, scary world that we're kind of leaning toward. So there's a lot going on and you have to pay attention."

Oates revealed that he has already taken steps to safeguard his own solo work and the work he has done with Daryl Hall as part of Hall & Oates.

"I've been thinking about it for a few years now and working very hard to protect the intellectual property that is me personally, and Hall & Oates. It's not easy. Lots of stumbling blocks along the way, but, yeah, very important to do that and, I'm very aware of it," he said.

The musician praised the recent bill passed in Tennessee, known as the ELVIS Act, which protects singers' voice likenesses.

According to The Associated Press, the bill also introduces a new civil action to hold individuals liable if they publish or perform an individual's voice without permission or use technology to reproduce an artist's name, photographs, voice, or likeness without proper authorization.

"It's great that Tennessee is trying to lead the way, and it makes perfect sense because the state of Tennessee, the music business is one of its main businesses," Oates said.

Discussing an experiment with AI, Oates shared, "So, we threw it out there to a graphic guy who used AI to generate images for this particular song. I didn't think it had anything to do with the song at all. To me, it was just funny, but it was an interesting thing to do to see what happened."

While Oates acknowledges some potential benefits of AI, he remains cautious.

"I think the positive is going to be it depends on your point of view and who you are and where you are. I think the positive thing is it's going to enable, a new generation and future generations to create new music in new ways that I don't think is, I think is probably unforeseen," he said.

"Who knows what it's really going to do?" he continued. "The good thing about the digital revolution was that everyone could be heard. The bad thing is that everyone could be heard."