AI ‘scares the hell out of me’ says composer Charles Fox
US COMPOSER and songwriter Charles Fox said artificial intelligence could never duplicate the masters of music because it came “from their hearts”.
The musician, who wrote 1973 Grammywinning track Killing Me Softly With His Song, appeared at the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles where he was honoured with a star in the recording category – alongside music stars Paul Williams and Diane Warren.
During his career, two-time Oscar nominee Fox composed the music for more than 100 films including Barbarella, Nine To Five, and Goodbye Columbus, and the theme songs for TV series including Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, and Wonder Woman.
“Artificial intelligence scares the hell out of me, I don’t like it at all,” Fox said after the ceremony.
“As a trained musician, I could write music to sound like Bach, or Beethoven, or Mozart, or Stravinsky, that’s just training, you learn the craft. But there’s never going to be a duplicate of any of those masters because it came originally from them, from their hearts, and then the world moves on.”
Fox added: “And so if artificial can produce music that sounds like something else, who cares, who needs it.
“Give me someone who has a real heart, who writes what hasn’t been done. That’s my feeling.”
Fox said he doesn’t know where artificial intelligence will go – “none of us do”.
“People ask me, would I go to a concert of only artificial intelligence – I have no interest in that,” the 83-year-old said.
During his onstage speech, Fox became unexpectedly emotional as he reminisced on his journey into Hollywood.
Fox said: “I’ve been coming by here for years looking at these wonderful stars representing people’s life work – what I didn’t expect is to look out and see so many people I love and know, my family.
“And to think this is here forever, and I didn’t expect to get that emotional about it.”