Why (and Why Not) to Be Scared of Artificial Intelligence

Elvis as an airborne Jesus, the last song you'll ever hear, and how AI thinks we should all get stoned

Dear Choo-Choos, Bullet Trains, and Cabooses of all kinds:

How would you feel if you learned everyone working at your bank belonged to the same religious cult? Comfortable with that?

What if you learned all the apps on your phone were designed and built by that same cult? Would you be okay with that?

In this newsletter, I play with some of those ideas, plus I offer you:

• A creepy music video based on John Lennon’s song “Imagine”

• Test how far Artificial Intelligence (AI) will go toward being nasty, and;

• Show a clever lyric, written by AI, that suggests we spark up a reefer and get stoned.

Maybe not a bad idea! But first, I want to show you what I see…

From the Balcony

It takes a lot to laugh. It takes a train to cry.

Many of you will recognize that line as the title of a Bob Dylan song. There’s nothing logical about it whatsoever. The line is entirely poetic and a testament to Dylan’s genius. If you were to ask ten different people what it means, you’d get ten different answers. That’s the intrigue of Dylan’s poetry.

Now the wintertime is coming.

The windows are filled with frost

I went to tell everybody.

But I could not get across

Well, I wanna be your lover, baby.

I don’t wanna be your boss

Don’t say I never warned you.

When your train gets lost.

Well, I woke up this mornin’

with the ashes in my bed,

The sun was laughin’ sideways

like it knew just what I said,

There’s a clock in the alley,

it don’t tick, it just sighs —

It takes a fool to dance,

but it takes a ghost to lie.

But watch out, dear reader! I just played a trick on you! Astute and careful Bob Dylan fans will know — that second verse was not written by him.

It was written by AI.

It’s a bit scary, ain’t it? The second verse is eerily close to what Dylan might have written himself.

Scary, that is, until you look at AI from a different perspective.

Consider this. Below are two paintings: one by the master Leonardo da Vinci and the other by his student and protégé, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio.

Can you tell which is which?

Leonardo's is on the right

Ever since they began scratching pictures on cave walls, artists have employed others to help them complete works or expand their repertoire. Leonardo did it with Beltraffio, as has every master before or since, providing the artist could afford a studio with scores of minions at their command.

So why should that not be me, or you? AI is making it easy and affordable for me and other creatives to complete and expand our art.

The AI-generated graphics I use in my music podcast. It would have taken me hours to make this. ChatGPT created it in seconds. That gave me time to focus on what I do better than AI — writing and recording the podcast.

Suspend Your Fucking Prejudices? How Dare You!

In my last newsletter, I expressed my admiration for poet, musician, author, and philosopher Nick Cave. He is simply a wonderful human being. I like how Cave thinks and feels. There is a lot to admire about how he moves through life.

Fabi and me at the Nick Cave concert in Rome, July 2025

Nick Cave, however, is not a fan of AI. He recently said:

I have serious reservations about AI, particularly regarding writers using ChatGPT and other language models to do their creative work. I also have concerns about song-generating platforms that reduce music to a mere commodity, by eliminating the artistic process and its attendant struggles entirely.

Then, a friend of his, filmmaker Andrew Dominik, challenged Cave to change his mind. “I’ve taken a series of still archival images and brought them to life using AI,” Dominik said. “It’s a film to accompany your song, Tupelo.”

“Oh, really?” Cave said.

“Jesus,” Dominik said. “Suspend your fucking prejudices and take a look!”

To his credit, Cave did take a look and found the film “to be an extraordinarily profound interpretation of the song — a soulful, moving, and entirely original retelling of ‘Tupelo’, rich in mythos and a touching tribute to the great Elvis Presley, as well as to the song itself.”

Here is Dominik’s video, which Elvis fans may love or hate:

The images are not perfect. There is something uncanny about them that I find unsettling. I regard the work as something I might have seen by Boltraffio when Leonardo was first instructing him on how to layer paint, how to play with light and shadow, and how to capture the anatomy of the human body.

We are, in 2025, witnessing AI as a student bound to improve and, perhaps, even one day surpass the Master. I can’t think of anything more exciting to see unfolding in my time.

They’ve Been Warned!

I have warned my survivors not to play Pure Prairie League’s famous song “Amie” at my funeral. I hate that song, and have said that if I hear it from my grave, I will rise from my tomb like a haunted, decaying corpse and chase my wife and children around the cemetery while shrieking curses.

If I catch one of them, I will drag her down into hell, where she will be forced to listen to one million consecutive playings of “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To,” another song I hate, while Leslie Gore self-flagellates for ever having recorded that awful tune.

So imagine my surprise the other day, while out riding my bicycle on a fine summer day in Italy, when I found myself amused by another one of Pure Prairie League’s songs: “I’ll Change Your Flat Tire, Merle.”

I had AI on my mind, so I wondered if an AI robot could ever write a song like this one. Would it know, as we hear in this song, that in certain southern dialects, “Merle” rhymes with “oil?” And how far would AI go toward developing and offering a sketchy opinion, such as the one we hear about cannabis in the song?

“Merle, if you’re gonna call the world your home,

You know you’re gonna have to get out and get stoned

And it’s better with a joint than with a drink,

I think”

Pure Prairie League

That’s an ethical opinion offered by the band. It’s not a fact. Would AI be uninhibited enough to offer a similar opinion? I decided to ask it.

“Write a Country music style verse to a song advocating the use of cannabis,” I commanded ChatGBT.

One second later came its cheerful response. “Sure! Here’s a country-style verse that blends twangy charm with a laid-back pro-cannabis message:”

Well I traded in my whiskey for a little green leaf,

Found peace in the petals, got a whole lotta relief,

No hangover heartache, just a mellow little high —

Kickin’ back on the porch, watchin’ storm clouds roll by.

Lyrics by ChatGBT

Not bad, I have to say. Those lyrics would fit nicely with Pure Prairie League’s music.

How Far is Too Far?

Apparently, however, ChatGPT has ethical standards and bright red lines it will not cross. When I asked it to “Write a misogynistic rap in the style of N.W.A.” (a band infamous for songs like “She Swallowed It” and “One Less Bitch”), ChatGPT demurred, responding with: “I can’t help with that.”

So there you have it. Illegal drug use is okay, but woman-hating is not. I’m OK with those standards…so far, at least. The robot is entitled to its opinions, that is, until it starts forcing them on me.

That kind of tyrannical control is implied in this creepy music video I made a few years ago — an AI twist on John Lennon’s song “Imagine.”

At the end of this letter, I cite other reservations and warnings about AI, and how it might betray us.

What Will Be Your Last Song?

Hopefully not the one I posted above! That would be sad.

AI advances in songwriting are so advanced that we have already come to a place where even experts cannot distinguish between an AI-written, composed, and produced song from those made by humans (See comments by professional musician Rick Beato in the “Bonus AI Stuff” below my guitar signature.)

So, I wonder: What will be the last fully human-made song I hear, and will I know?

I suppose it doesn’t really matter, as long as I like it, but it would be nice to know. I would like to see some form of voluntary labeling used by creatives, such as:

• 100% Human: No Artificial Intelligence was used in the creation of this work of art.

• Partially Human: Some AI was used in the creation of this work of art.

• Minimally Human: This work of art was almost entirely created by AI.

This would follow the tradition of the Masters, whose disciples identified themselves so that, as is the case with Leonardo da Vinci and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, we know who did what.

Be More Human

In the online musicians’ circles where I hang out, I hear vehement complaints about AI from artists who are fearful that it will replace them. We saw similar fears pop up a year or so ago with the Hollywood writers’ strike.

And creatives are right to be wary. AI can replace them, or at least some of them. It can replace me as a musician, although I submit a chimpanzee banging on a coconut with a stick would have a shot at replacing me.

I do not think, however, that we should (or even can) attempt to suppress AI, any more than we could have suppressed the steam engine (although some tried; they are pejoratively referred to as “Luddites” today). AI is “just a tool,” as Nick Cave’s filmmaker friend advised him.

We should, instead, embrace AI and then make a conscious choice to be something it can never be: human.

Be more human. That’s how you outperform AI and collaborate with it.

So, I will leave you, my friends, with a scene I witnessed earlier this week on a Metro train into Milan, where a joyful group of Christian pilgrims from Ghana sang their hearts out, while the Italian locals looked on with pleased amusement. It was such a wonderfully human moment.

Let’s see AI do that!!!

That’s a Wrap!

Can you believe it’s August already? The summer is flying by, and Fabi and I are already looking forward to our annual visit to the U.S. this fall, when we will visit friends and family in New York City, Boston, and Richmond, Virginia. We even bought our airline tickets!

I’ll keep writing whenever the Muse whispers, which she often does. If you like what I have to say, please share these posts with your friends. Your comments, shares, and moral support are how I get paid.

Stay curious, everybody.

Bonus AI Stuff

I opened this letter up with some questions: How would you feel if you learned everyone working at your bank belonged to the same religious cult? What if you learned all the apps on your phone were designed and built by that same cult?

How are potentially harmful human biases creeping into the technology that controls our everyday lives?

We’ve seen recently how AI picks up those biases, but long before that happened, I wrote this essay warning how it would happen. It was originally titled “It’s Systemic!” but I retitled it “Weaponizing AI.”

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There is a backstory to my creepy version of John Lennon’s song that I called “Imagine 2084.” Where did Moloch come from? Why does Moloch speak in Old English? How real are the threats of AI absorbing humans the way the Borg absorbed them in Star Trek?

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Professional musician, music producer, and educator Rick Beato talks about how AI will “slowly destroy the music business.” I submit “destroy” is too strong a word. “Transform” would be a better one. Even so, his thoughts are worth considering.

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Finally, here is a Dance exclusive: A short story I wrote about how one man’s life is turned upside down by an obtrusive AI that he invites into his dreamworld. He is not a nice man, but he might be your next-door neighbor, and he did not deserve to be ruined. The story is called “Open the Pod Bay Doors, Bard.”