“Rigidity breaks; flexibility endures”: How Nick Cave came to have a more rounded view on artificial intelligence – with the help of an AI Elvis

Nick Cave has changed his mind about AI. Or at least he’s softened his stance.

You may remember that the Bad Seed was one of its most prominent critics and was vituperative about its use in music. Back in 2023 he described a lyric via Chat GPT ‘in the style of Nick Cave’ as “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human.”

Later that same year on his Red Hand Files newsletter he said that artists who used AI were “participating in (the) erosion of the world’s soul and the spirit of humanity itself.”

But he seems to have had his mind changed by his friend and collaborator Andrew Dominik. The director, who worked with Cave on the film The Assasination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford has made a new video for Cave’s song Tupelo to commemorate its 40^th anniversary, featuring still photos of Elvis brought to life via the magic of AI and Cave has been openly impressed – on the Red Hand Files he called the new vid “a soulful, moving, and entirely original retelling of ‘Tupelo,’ rich in mythos and a touching tribute to the great Elvis Presley.”

Tupelo - 40th Birthday - YouTube

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Cave said he felt that Dominik’s images of Presley “had an uncanny quality, as if he had been raised from the dead, and the crucifixion-resurrection images at the end were both shocking and deeply affecting.” He wrote that he and his wife “were blown away. As I watched Andrew’s surreal little film, I felt my view of AI as an artistic device soften. To some extent, my mind was changed. ‘It’s a tool, like any other,’ said Andrew.”

And so the 67 year old artist had come round to have a, well, more nuanced view of AI. In answering a fan’s query about whether changing your mind is a sign of weakness, he wrote: “I believe that the ability to change one’s mind is the very definition of strength. We pursue the truth wherever it may lead, remaining flexible and humble enough to adjust our views as new evidence emerges, regardless of how uncomfortable that may feel. It is ultimately a form of resilience, not a sign of weakness. Rigidity breaks; flexibility endures.”

It seems Cave is firmly with the great 20^th Century economist John Maynard Keynes, who famously said: “When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?”