Yesterday (May 2), Washed Out — the chillwave project of Ernest Greene — announced his new album, sharing the news alongside an AI-generated music video for lead single "The Hardest Part." Any time a prominent act decides to do this (like L.S. Dunes did last fall), they're inevitably going to face backlash amid the ongoing cultural discussion about the potential merits and pitfalls of using AI in art.
Washed Out is no exception. Greene's indie-pop contemporary, Youth Lagoon (a.k.a. Trevor Powers), has taken aim at him for making the video with Sora, the new OpenAI tool that uses text prompts to generate realistic video imagery.
Powers took to Twitter last night (May 2) to share his disdain, writing, "The Washed Out AI vid is the best case for blatant artlessness I've ever seen. it says nothing, does nothing, is nothing. Ugly slog too."
The musician continued, "Being an artist carries the responsibility of telling the truth. Ur personal truth. Some guts. Anything short of that, ur a bore & a grifter."
Elsewhere in AI news this week, FKA twigs spoke to a US Congress subcommittee about the dangers of the technology not being controlled directly by artists — and the potential fruits for musicians to be able to harness it; in her case, to develop a deepfake version of herself to interact with fans on social media.