David Guetta: "The future of music is in AI"

Super-producer and DJ David Guetta thinks "the future of music is in AI", according to comments made at this year's Brit Awards.

Speaking with the BBC at the ceremony, Guetta said "I'm sure the future of music is in AI. For sure. There's no doubt. But as a tool."

"Nothing is going to replace taste," he continued. "What defines an artist is, you have a certain taste, you have a certain type of emotion you want to express, and you're going to use all the modern instruments to do that."

Guetta went on to draw comparisons between the development of AI and the invention of influential musical instruments like the TR-909 and sampler. "I think really AI might define new musical styles. I believe that every new music style comes from a new technology.

"Probably there would be no rock 'n' roll if there was no electric guitar. There would be no acid house without the Roland TB-303 or the Roland TR-909 drum machine. There would be no hip-hop without the sampler."

Guetta recently used AI technology to generate a deepfake sample of Eminem, which he dropped into a song during a live performance.

"Eminem bro! There’s something I made as a joke. And it worked so good I could not believe it," Guetta explained. "I discovered those websites that are about AI; basically, you can write lyrics in the style of any artist you like. So I typed ‘write a verse in the style of Eminem about future rave. And I went to another AI website that can recreate the voice. I put the text in that and I played the record and people went nuts!"

The Grammy-winning producer later shared the results online, telling the BBC he posted it because he "wanted to open the discussion and bring awareness".

"It's very funny, actually, because a lot of people are reacting. Some of them are like, 'Oh, this is genius.' Some of them are getting super mad at me, but I'm not going to release the record [...] It is impossible to think that it's a real collab, but it sounds exactly like him," he continued.

David Guetta was named Producer of the Year at this year's Brit Awards ceremony.

Revisit our feature on AI, beatmaking and the developers working on "DALL-E for sound design".