‘Fancy Like’ singer says he’s glad he was born in an era ‘when creativity was needed’
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For country star Walker Hayes, artificial intelligence makes him very worried about the future.
“I’m really glad I was born when I was born, when creativity was needed. I heard an AI song the other day, by an AI group and everything, and I’m telling you, it can outwrite me any day,” he told Fox News Digital.
He continued, “It was absolutely phenomenal. And I’m not going to sit here and pretend I could out-create it.”
Hayes worked for years in the music industry before scoring a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Country chart with his song “Fancy Like,” which had gone viral on TikTok.
“Honestly, it makes me wonder, when you take the necessity for humans to create out of the world, I don’t know if I want to see what the world looks like then,” he said. “I think that’s when we’re all just sitting and not moving, and we only talk, and we’re just lying in a bed. So, I got to tell you, it weirds me out.”
Even with those concerns, Hayes has faith in humanity.
“But I think God made us creative. I think every human is creative. We created AI. That’s how creative we are. It’s a mind-bender when you think about it,” the 44-year-old said.
He jokingly added, “But I will say this, if someone can put my vocals on my records and I don’t have to come in and sing them, that’d be cool – makes my life a lot easier.”
AI proved beneficial for fellow country singer Randy Travis to create new music after losing his speaking and singing abilities to a stroke more than 10 years ago.
At the ACM Awards last month, Travis and his wife, Mary, told Fox News Digital the technology has “given Randy back the ability to make the music, to do the things that he loved to do more than anything in the world. And if people could just imagine if their greatest passion was taken from them, what would you hope for? So, our hope and our prayer for 11 years was ‘Please let us make music again,’ right?”
Travis agreed as she continued, “And now that he can, it’s been magical. We like to call it ‘artistic intelligence’ because to watch he and [record producer] Kyle [Lehning] work together to make this song out of 42 song stems of his, with James Dupree laying down the [vocals], it was amazing to watch.”
“And we’re hoping that AI will be used for good from now on and not pirated, not robbing from the artist,” Mary added.
