“Weird Al” Yankovic has put his money where his mouth is when it comes to his displeasure with AI, revealing that he recently declined “a nice pile of money” to appear in an AI-related business software commercial.
Discussing the incident in a new interview with Syracuse.com, Yankovic explained that he initially accepted the offer to appear in the ad, but that was before he learned of the commercial’s connection to AI. Then, he rejected the offer.
“I’m not going to mention any names, but they told me it was for a business,” he said. “It was business software that would increase productivity… I said, ‘Oh well, yeah, sure, I could do that.'”
Yankovic continued, “And then a week before we’re supposed to shoot it, I find out, oh, this is, it’s AI. And I thought, ‘Oh no, I can’t be the poster boy for AI, forget it.’ So, I felt bad about kind of pulling out at the last minute. But yeah, I’m not, I’m not down with that.”
The comedic musical star added that he is “not a fan of AI” being used to create parody songs.
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Last month, a new investigation confirmed that songs by Australian and New Zealand musicians are among the millions which have been stolen for use in AI datasets.
The claims come from The Atlantic reporter Alex Reisner, whose ongoing investigations into the world of AI training data have uncovered massive song datasets that are reportedly being shared within the community focused on AI development.
According to Reisner, one of the four datasets uncovered includes 12 million songs, another includes 9 million, and two others include more than 100,000 songs.
Together, they feature music from artists as beloved and prominent as Taylor Swift, Nirvana, The Beatles, Bad Bunny, and more. If one were to listen to the entire largest dataset, it would take 91 years.
Earlier this year, it was announced that “Weird Al” Yankovic would be the subject of a Broadway musical, with his songs set to feature in the new project, Dare to Be Stupid: The Weird Al Musical.
In a statement, “Weird Al” said the “problem” of no entertainment based on his work on Broadway was one he aimed to remedy “immediately.”
“Ever since I was a middle-aged man, I’ve always wanted to be a part of the New York theatre community,” he said. “Plus, the one thing people always say about Broadway is that it’s ‘severely lacking in Weird Al-based entertainment,’ and I think this musical should fix that problem immediately.”
