"I'm like, are we in a f*****g movie right now, or what?"
What Is Going On?
Not sure how to feel about AI? You're in good company.
During a conference on Wednesday, Variety asked rapper and business mogul Calvin "Snoop Dogg" Broadus Junior to share his thoughts on AI in regard to the ongoing Writer's Guild strike.
And, well, Snoop didn't hold back. He expressed a mix of fascination and concern, comparing the rise of AI to sci-fi movies, and questioned whether he should just give up and invest in the buzzy tech.
"It's blowing my mind because I watched movies on this as a kid years ago," Broadus reflected during the panel discussion, as quoted by Ars Technica. "When I see this shit I'm like what is going on?"
"Shit, what the fuck?" he added. "I'm lost, I don't know."
Snoop's bewilderment is reflective of a much broader conversation: It's increasingly difficult to keep up with the AI world, tech that's seemingly breaking new ground on a monthly basis.
Big Questions
The musician even threw in a reference to machine learning pioneer and AI "godfather" Geoffrey Hinton's surprise exit from Google, while also warning of the dangers of the tech.
"And I heard the dude, the old dude that created AI saying, 'This is not safe, 'cause the AIs got their own minds, and these motherfuckers gonna start doing their own shit," Broadus continued, referring to Hinton.
"I'm like, are we in a fucking movie right now, or what?" he added. "The fuck man? So do I need to invest in AI so I can have one with me? Or like, do y'all know?"
Given Broadus' usual tech enthusiasm — the rapper is a vocal fan of digital assets like crypto and NFTs, and even performed inside the metaverse last year — his ambivalence towards AI is surprising.
But then again, the rapidly developing, consumer-facing AI systems that we've seen crop up in recent months are increasingly difficult to make sense of.
Plus, on a much more Snoop-specific level, AI-generated music has been making a major splash as of late. Music stars and their record labels have already had to respond to deepfaked tunes, which threaten to turn copyright law upside down.
Whether they think AI will open new doors or shut them out entirely, most major artists will likely have to grapple with how they'll deal with this new reality.
As a wise man very recently said: "Shit, what the fuck?"
More on AI and music: Grimes Says She'll Split Royalties with Anyone Who Deepfakes Her Voice into a Song
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