Ice Cube has made a name for himself by pulling no punches — and the former N.W.A member has now taken aim at the current artificial intelligence (AI) craze.
During an interview with the Full Send podcast on Friday (May 19), the “No Vaseline” rapper made clear that he isn’t a fan of AI-generated songs.
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“I don’t wanna hear an AI Drake song,” Cube said to the host, who asked him if he’d heard Drizzy and The Weeknd’s viral AI-generated collaboration “Heart on My Sleeve.”
When the host countered by saying that “everyone on the Internet” was listening to it, Ice Cube doubled down on his anti-AI stance.
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“Yeah, I don’t wanna hear that bullshit,” he dryly replied. “He should sue whoever made it.”
Undeterred, the host tried again. “AI’s coming for you too, bro,” he said.
“Yeah,” replied Cube. “And I’mma sue the muthafucka who made it and the people and the platform who play it. It’s like a sample, you know what I mean? Somebody can’t take your original voice and manipulate it without having to pay.”
Ice Cube isn’t the only rapper who isn’t a fan of AI technology.
During an interview on SiriusXM earlier this month, Black Eyed Peas co-founder will.i.am revealed that he, too, isn’t on board with the burgeoning technology, revealing to host DJ Whoo Kid that he was going to take extra steps to protect his “facial math” from AI.
“We all have voices, and everyone’s compromised because there are no rights or ownership to your facial math or your voice frequency,” he said. “So, forget songs. Banks. People calling up your bank pretending to be you.
“Forget songs. Just family matters and wiring money. You’re getting a FaceTime or a Zoom call and because there’s no intelligence on the call, there’s nothing to authenticate A.I. call or a person call.”
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He continued: “That’s the urgent thing, protecting our facial math. I am my face math. I don’t own that. I own the rights to ‘I Got A Feeling’, I own the rights to the songs I wrote, but I don’t own the rights to my face or my voice? There’s new laws and new industries about to boof.
“This time next year you’ll be like, ‘will.i.am said that on that radio station.’ Fact is, these are all new parameters that we’re all trying to navigate around because the technology is that amazing and with amazingness comes regulations and governance that we have yet to implement.”
