Young Guru has called out Timbaland over his “dangerous and corny” plans for AI music.
During an interview with Forbes earlier this week, Timbo revealed plans to launch a startup that would “commercialize artificial intelligence software” with the goal of “revolutionizing how songs are made.”
“It’s going to really be a new way of creating and a new way of generating money with less costs,” he said. “I’m already here. This is what I’m doing. I’m going to lead the way.”
The software was developed by Light Energy Labs, a Miami-based company he co-founded last year with software programmer and producer Zayd “Creatrgod” Portillo.
Timbaland believes AI voice filters will “open up an unprecedented world of creativity in music,” and hopes his startup will “usher in the new era.”
He added that aside from helping emerging artists, the software could also benefit established ones, meaning a producer could use the voice of “a music legend who is no longer with us.”
But Young Guru doesn’t share Timbaland’s enthusiasm. JAY-Z‘s longtime engineer took to his Instagram Stories on Thursday (May 18) to criticize the producer’s AI plans.
“@Timbaland I love you my brother. You know I do. But this ain’t it!!!” he wrote. “This is dangerous and at a basic level it’s corny!! I will be on the side of the luddites.”
Young Guru has been highly critical of AI technology. After a fake Kendrick Lamar song surfaced online in February, Guru explained why he was so against it.
“This has dominated my Howard group chat for a couple days. Ok I’m at the point where I can voice my concerns with our current state of AI,” he wrote on Instagram. “I have followed as many versions of what AI could do for some years now.
“I remember being at MIT and students showing me a project where they were actively feeding a computer ‘All’ the jazz records that ever existed. So that AI could analyze and create music in any style of any musician.”
He continued: “I didn’t think we would get here this fast with the voice. Of course my mind goes to the ethical and legal aspects of what can be done with programs like Tacotron 2. You add that to the power of ChatGPT and you realize we are in a very groundbreaking but dangerous moment. It’s not the tech, it’s the evil that men do with the tech.”
When an AI-generated JAY-Z verse went viral in March, he continued to speak out against AI and raised concerns over what it could mean for artists’ rights.
“I’ve been trying to tell everyone that this is where we are now with AI,” he said. “For some reason this one got everyone’s attention. So what do we do. On one hand I’m well aware that you can’t stop technology. Once the genie is out of the box you can put him back in.
“On the other hand we have to protect the rights of the artist. Not only artist but everyone in society. People should not be able to take your Name, Image and Likeness without permission. We have to add the voice to this law.
He added: “We have to learn from past mistakes. You would be a fool to chase every person that is going to do this. We learned that lesson with Napster. The only way I see to deal with it is to change the law. There are so many different opinions. We could change the United States law tomorrow but the internet is world wide. What a time we live in!!”
Autotune filters ruined hip hop. AI filters might save hip hop. Notice how all of a sudden, thanks to AI, hearing a rappers real voice is cool again. These rappers act like its a robot writing the lyrics ans spitting them but its not, its a damn voice filter that works similar to autotune. You still have to master the rappers flow and write content that sounds like something they would say. And then you have to actually record it before you run it through the filter. What these rappers are really scared of is being replaced. The whole idea of unreleased tracks or a “vault” is now pointless. Now they gotta do a video release to every song to prove its them which cuts into their profits. Horrors, lol.
I hear you. Autotune messed music up bc a nobody all of a sudden is hitting them notes that only gifted singers could (Whitney, Mariah, Kci and Jojo or any singer prior mid 200s and before). I think the main concern is artists now using AI that steals personas…it’s like Tyler the Creator said, he doesn’t want a posthumous record/album especially with a feature with a person he doesn’t know or effs with…Timbaland fell off and has no more creative juices left. This concept of copy and paste is lazy, identity theft at most. And the true artists estates are to be left in the cold bc somebody is using the deceased artists likeness for monetary gain. I think this whole scenario is inevitable. But for a so called established producer in the game championing it is wack af. I hope they put laws in place somehow. Do you want to hear your favorite artists mimicked along tracks that you know they wouldn’t be on, much so with artists they wouldn’t work with? I sure as hell don’t want to hear an AI Doom feature with Drake, 2pac with any of these gen rappers etc. It’s pretty much plagiarism to a degree. Timbaland is a sucka for this. I hope Jay Z, with whom he has high regards for, as well as Drake (that doesn’t entertain the idea, and whom Timbaland looks up to bc you know, he stated both him and Jay helped him during his darkest moments) would stand up for this.
Great take
Says the corn ball who stole GURU ‘ s name.
Timbaland been a cornball. Good producer though.
Cant steal GURU of all peoples name. Go be young eminem