Paul McCartney is certainly for life, but in a recent interview with the BBC, the former Beatle stumbled upon protections for young artists against AI and exploitation by Tech Giants.
“You get guys, girls, they go out, they write a beautiful song, and they don’t own it,” he noted. “They have nothing to do with it. Anyone who wants can rip it apart,” the 82-year-old said in an interview Sunday.
“The reality is that the money is going somewhere. When it gets to streaming platforms, someone gets it, and it should be the person who created it. It shouldn’t be some tech giant somewhere.”
The 18-time Grammy winner spoke out as the UK government considers weakening copyright protection there and allowing tech companies to train AI models on creatives’ content unless creators specifically hack.
“We the people, you’re the government. You’re supposed to protect us. That’s your job.” You know, if you’re putting together a bill, make sure you protect the creative thinkers or the creative artists, or you won’t have it.
It’s not that Sir Paul is against artificial intelligence.
“I think AI is great, and it can do a lot of cool things,” he said.
In fact, he and Ringo Starr used artificial intelligence in 2023 to “finish” John Lennon’s vocals from an unfinished demo and create a new tune called Every now and then. The song was nominated for two Grammys.
“We took an old cassette of Jones and cleaned up his voice, so it sounded like it was recorded yesterday. So it has its uses,” McCartney said.
“But creative people should not be torn apart. There is no sense in that.”