John Oates on AI in the Music Industry: "A Crazy, Scary World

John Oates, half of the iconic duo Hall & Oates, expresses concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the music industry, warning that it could have a "crazy, scary" impact on artists.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, John Oates shared his apprehension about the potential of AI to replace songwriters and artists altogether. He envisions a dystopian future where record companies can release posthumous albums of deceased artists using AI to replicate their voices and extract musical patterns.

"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," Oates exclaimed.

He emphasized the urgency for artists and those in the industry to pay attention to the rapidly evolving AI landscape. "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."

To protect his intellectual property from AI exploitation, Oates has taken proactive measures and urged others to do the same. "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 stated.

While he acknowledged the potential of AI to democratize music creation, Oates remained skeptical about its ability to replace human ingenuity. "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.

But he tempered his optimism with a dose of realism. "Who knows what it's really going to do?" he questioned. "The good thing about the digital revolution was that everyone could be heard. The bad thing is that everyone could be heard."

Oates praised Tennessee's recent passage of the ELVIS Act, which aims to protect singers' voice likenesses and combat unauthorized use of artists' voices or likenesses by technology. "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," he said.

Despite his reservations about AI's potential impact on the music industry, Oates acknowledged experimenting with AI to create a music video for his song "Too Late to Break Your Fall." While the results were not to his satisfaction, he recognized the intriguing possibilities of AI. "I had a song called, ‘Too Late to Break Your Fall,’ which I released last year. I was doing videos for all my digital releases, and I just didn't have a concept for that particular song," he recalled.

"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."

Ultimately, Oates remains cautious about the future of AI in the music industry. "I think it's a very important issue and it's one that I'm definitely paying attention to," he concluded.