James Blunt ‘humiliated’ at ‘generic’ version of his lyrics created by AI
By Hannah Roberts, PA Entertainment Reporter
Musician James Blunt has said he was “humiliated” by artificial intelligence (AI) after he used it to generate lyrics in the style of his music.
The 50-year-old pop singer, known for hit song You’re Beautiful, said the generative AI model created something “very, very generic”.
Speaking on the I Never Thought It Would Happen podcast with host Chris Difford, he said: “Every single one of us must have, having heard of this (AI), typed in and then written ‘Give me a first based on this, in the style of, in my case, a James Blunt lyric’.
“The truth is, either AI comes up with something very, very generic or my lyrics are just absolutely mundane.
“So AI has totally humiliated me whenever I’ve gone and asked it to impersonate myself.”
He added: “The thing about songwriting and music generally is, it is your flaws and your failings and your mistakes which make it have character.
“Character is something that is not formulaic or generic and even if I have written something before and I say ‘Let me write it in the style of me again,’ it will be boring to myself, I need to go out and test myself and push myself to do something different.
“And some of those things I would make by mistake and I don’t think AI can do that yet. I don’t think it can bring in true character flaws and mistakes at this stage.”
He added: “I don’t think it’s reached one’s own voice. One’s soul at this stage.”
Blunt also said he had promised he would never use the AI tool again.
Generative AI is capable of creating text, images or other media based on the vast data it has been trained on.
Recent examples of this include ChatGPT, where users can make requests such as “write a song”.
The English musician was the star of documentary James Blunt: One Brit Wonder, filmed while the singer was on tour in 2022 and showcasing the behind-the-scenes moments from his life on the road.
He is often jokingly self critical of his work and said in the documentary trailer that he often posts online using pseudonyms as otherwise he would not receive good reviews.
