--- title: "Nick Cave Unloads on Musicians Using ChatGPT to Write Songs" description: "A known AI hater, Nick Cave has once again gone off on OpenAI's ChatGPT and its imitators being used to mimic real songwriting." date: "2023-08-12" modified: "2023-08-12" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nick-cave-chatgpt-songwriting" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "OpenAI" tags: - "ai music" - "chatgpt" - "nick cave" - "the digest" --- # Nick Cave Unloads on Musicians Using ChatGPT to Write Songs ![A known AI hater, Nick Cave has once again gone off on OpenAI's ChatGPT and its imitators being used to mimic real songwriting.]() *COLOGNE, GERMANY - JUNE 05: Musician and author Nick Cave gestures during lit.COLOGNE Spezial: Nick Cave & Seán O'Hagan: „Faith, Hope and Carnage" at Theater am Tanzbrunnen on June 05, 2023 in Cologne, Germany. Faith, Hope and Carnage is a book about Nick Cave's inner life. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images) \Image: Andreas Rentz\* ## Oh No You Didn't Known AI hater and famed singer-songwriter Nick Cave has once again gone off on OpenAI's ChatGPT and its imitators being used to mimic the actual talent to write and record music. In a "letter to the editor"-style [blog post](), Cave took questions from two purported music industry folks about songwriters using generative AI to speed up the process. "I know you’ve talked about ChatGPT before," the letter-writer wrote, "but what’s wrong with making things faster and easier?" Whether or not they knew it, the purported music industry type who queried the storied troubadour clearly touched a nerve. "ChatGPT rejects any notions of creative struggle, that our endeavours animate and nurture our lives giving them depth and meaning," Cave seethed. "It rejects that there is a collective, essential and unconscious human spirit underpinning our existence, connecting us all through our mutual striving." The technology's intent, he continued, "is to eliminate the process of creation and its attendant challenges, viewing it as nothing more than a time-wasting inconvenience that stands in the way of the commodity itself." "Why bother with the artistic process and its accompanying trials?" he continued. "Why shouldn’t we make it 'faster and easier?" ## Nick-strodamus As the ChatGPT-curious Cave fan noted, the "Red Right Hand" singer had indeed written about the now-notorious chatbot before — and his commentary back then, at the beginning of 2023, feels a bit like prophecy now. Back in January, when OpenAI was still fairly new to the public psyche and hadn't yet resulted in [people losing their jobs]() by [the thousands](), another clueless fan [wrote into the musician's blog]() with ChatGPT-generated lyrics that they had instructed the chatbot to write "[in the style of Nick Cave]()." Boy, was he pissed. "The apocalypse is well on its way," Cave wrote. "This song sucks." While waxing prolific in this latest blog post about the many ways ChatGPT is, to his mind, harming the creative process, Cave also touched on something very raw: that by undermining human creativity and transforming it into a cheap imitation meant to be sold, AI may be doing damage to the concept of art — and its importance to the human spirit — as well. "There are all sorts of temptations in this world that will eat away at your creative spirit," the artist wrote, "but none more fiendish than that boundless machine of artistic demoralisation, ChatGPT." It's a hard-lined view, to be sure. But considering what we've already seen happen since Cave's first takedown of ChatGPT — the rapid [mainstreaming of generative AI](), which has [rocked academic institutions]() and led to [massive entertainment industry strikes]() over the [existential dangers these technologies pose]() — it's becoming more and more difficult to disagree with him. **More on AI music:** [*Google and Universal Music Reportedly Want to Monetize Deepfaked Songs*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()