“Weird Al” Yankovic has revealed he turned down “a nice pile of money” to appear in a commercial for business software after he found out it was connected to AI.
In a recent interview with syracuse.com, Yankovic said he initially accepted the offer before learning the full details of the ad. “I’m not going to mention any names, but they told me it was for a business,” he explained. “It was business software that would increase productivity… I said, ‘Oh well, yeah, sure, I could do that.’”
Yankovic continued, “And then a week before we’re supposed to shoot it, I find out, oh, this is, it’s AI. And I thought, ‘Oh no, I can’t be the poster boy for AI, forget it.’ So I felt bad about kind of pulling out at the last minute. But yeah, I’m not, I’m not down with that.”
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The musician added that he is “not a fan of AI” being used to create parody songs. Yankovic is just the latest artist to speak out against the technology.
Just last month, Jack Antonoff called people who try to “optimize” the process of making music with AI “godless whores.” Before that, Billy Corgan vowed never to use AI, saying it would be a “deal with the devil,” and Grimes warned that AI is the “most dangerous thing that’s ever going to happen.”
Yankovic is currently on the latest iteration of his “Bigger & Weirder Tour,” which runs through mid-October. Tickets can be purchased here.