Green Day have poked fun at Will Smith for allegedly using AI to generate images of fans in a new video of his tour.
The rapper and actor recently wrapped up his tour in support of ‘Based On A True Story’ – his first studio album in 20 years, which came out in March.
Earlier this week, a video Smith shared on YouTube, showing highlights of the tour, made headlines as it appears some clips included had been made with AI.
Shots of audience members, many of whom are crying, were called into question as they appeared to have blurred or distorted faces, while others appear to have oddly shaped hands or excess fingers.
Another shot shows a man gripping a sign that read: “‘You Can Make It’ helped me survive cancer. THX Will,” but his knuckles seem to be blurred into the sign.
Now, Green Day have weighed in on the drama. On Instagram, the band shared a video from one of the recent shows on their South American tour, showing fans at the barrier near the stage singing along to ‘Basket Case’.
The video was shared alongside the caption: “Don’t need AI for our crowds 😜.”
Despite the debate surrounding the video, neither Smith nor his team has responded. NME also reached out to Smith’s representative for comment.
Tech blogger Andy Baio found that many of the shots in question in Smith’s video seem to be images already in still photos posted on Smith’s Instagram before the video was released.
Baio suggests that Smith’s team took some of those aforementioned still photos and put them through an “image-to-video model to create a short animated clip suitable for a concert montage.”
It comes during a period of controversy for AI technology in the music industry, with a recent study sharing the stark warning that people working in music are likely to lose a quarter of their income to Artificial Intelligence over the next four years.
Deezer also reported that around 10,000 AI-generated tracks are submitted to the platform daily – making up around 10 per cent of all its music uploads, and it has also emerged that AI-generated songs are reportedly being uploaded to dead musicians’ profiles on Spotify.
Meanwhile, Elton John, Coldplay, Dua Lipa, Paul McCartney, Florence Welch, Kate Bush and Robbie Williams are among those who this year called on the UK government to change copyright laws amid the threat from AI.
Elsewhere, SZA has hit out at AI users for being “codependent on a machine”, and James Cameron has revealed he is worried that the technology could lead to a real-life version of his film The Terminator.
In other Will Smith news, Michael Bay has left his position as director on the Smith’s film Fast And Loose, with creative differences being given as the reason.
As for Green Day, earlier this summer Billie Joe Armstrong led chants of “fuck Donald Trump” during a recent show in Belgium on the Fourth of July.