Dr. Dre Doubles Down On Claim That Only Uncreative People Are Anti-AI

Dr. Dre is right at the top of the list of music legends who are determined to set their legacies on fire for the benefit of tech oligarchs. This isn't that surprising when you consider that Dre himself became a tech oligarch many years ago. Still, it's striking to watch one of the all-time great rap producers go all-in on the idea that generative artificial intelligence is the next artistic frontier, like he can make it happen, just by saying it over and over again.

Earlier this year, Dr. Dre gave his AI take , which is that "some people are afraid of learning new things." In a New York Times interview , Dre said, "I don’t see [AI] as a threat. I think the only people that see it as a threat are the people who have trouble creating," and he claimed that he's using it while working on his own music. Now, he's doubling down on that take.

Dre's former N.W.A bandmate Ice Cube has a new podcast called Listen And Laugh with the comedian Mike Epps. Cube and Epps launched the podcast last Friday, and Dre was their first guest. In the middle of their conversation, Cube asked Dre for his take on AI, and Dre had this to say:

I'm extremely excited about AI. I love it. I love the potential of it. I love the idea of where it could possibly go with music, with film. What happens if someone says, "I'm gonna pay you, Cube, to be in my movie. You don't even have to be there, but you get to approve what they do. It's your image and your voice." What's wrong with that? It's just a whole new level of creativity. I think the only people that are gonna be mad about the elevation of AI are people who aren't that creative.

Mike Epps then made jokes about being "on the short school bus" because he doesn't like AI, while Cube pushed back on Dre, asking him, "Would you feel a certain way if a producer could go into a studio and say, 'Mix my record like Dr. Dre'? Wouldn't that make you feel a certain way?" Dre's response:

No, because as a creative force and a innovator, I could not be mad at that. I would respect that. That would be similar to somebody asking me this question before sampling came out. Would you be mad at someone sampling your records? Example: "Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang" would've came out, so that's the same question you asked me, right? Would you be mad at sampling? If you asked me this question 30, 40 years ago, Cube cut Dre off there, asking, "If somebody would've remade 'G Thang' and made it bigger than Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg..." Dre cut in to say, "I would love it." Cube: "Even if it was a AI computer?" Dre reiterated:

I would love that because that is a part of creativity and innovation. So just think about this: What would Leon Haywood say about that?... Leon Haywood did the original track to "Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang." It's called "I Want'a Do Something Freaky To You." See, we were having this same conversation back then about sampling. It would be a different thing. So if you think about it from that perspective, you can't be mad at how everything is moving and elevating creatively, especially the technology. What if you were mad at sampling? We wouldn't be sitting here right now!

Yeah, I understand that. But with sampling, you still take a skilled artist, even if he's Marley Marl, Dr. Dre, or whoever's sampling, Teddy Riley or anybody like that, you're still going from human to human to make a creation that's something fresh and new from something old.

Dre stayed on repeat, saying, "This is just a whole new level of creativity that we have to get used to. You have to get used to it, or you gonna be left behind." They went back and forth for a bit, and Cube said:

To me, tools in the hand of creators are great. It just in some way bother me somebody who never would think about doing what it takes to make a great record could just type it in... They not doing something special. We did something special with those drum machines and with those mics and with those records that people thought, a lot of them records just sat in the crate. Nobody listened to 'em no more. And we dug through those crates and gave 'em new life. But we had a skill set. It just bothers me that a artist or somebody can work for years and years to become great and then somebody can not do shit but roll over and make that.

While Cube was saying all that, Dre tried to interrupt him to say, "They are doing what it takes." He then offered his rebuttal: "OK, let's just say you're having this conversation with, let's say, Curtis Mayfield or Barry White about having a problem about how we made records." Cube allowed that a lot of those guys did have problems with sampling, but he said, "I'm saying there's still a creative process in even taking those records from how they made them to how we make them." Dre came in with some rhetorical questions:

Why do you give a fuck about how we made records, as opposed to how the new generation is making them? What if that is just something new? The problem is this is what happen for guys who are our age. It's like we don't want to take the time to learn the new technology, so we have a problem with the way they're doing things.

Cube: "But this is a computer taking total control of the creative process." Dre: "What's wrong with that? Because a computer took total control of the drummers when we started!" Cube: "But the human's still creating that new pattern or that loop or that sample or those blends and connections with different songs. What I'm saying is people pay artists for their choices." Dre: "But you're not thinking about it in a futuristic way. What's wrong with creating an artist?" Cube: "You can, but to me, a created Whitney Houston should never get the respect of a real Whitney Houston." Dre: "Because you're thinking about yesterday, not tomorrow."

At this point, Cube admits that he does like the idea that AI could allow someone who hasn't been in a studio to "make a song that they love, or can make a song that they've heard in they head that they don't have the connections to make. They can make a song that they wanna hear for themselves about about a family member, about a loved one." Rather than focusing on what he's saying about personal use, though, Dre goes back to his "creating an artist" thing: "I'm in complete control of this AI person that I created, and I'm in complete control of what he or she says, or what he or she is thinking."

They eventually reached the "agree to disagree" point. I did get the feeling that Dre hasn't had to have this conversation with too many people, but maybe that's just me projecting. In any case, I am Team Cube on this one. Some of that is down to who's pushing AI, to the environmental degradation and economic exploitation that I expect from these companies. Some of it is also the fact that I haven't heard an AI-generated track that can hit like "Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang." Maybe that kind of thing will exist one day, but I wouldn't put money on it. Also, Dre keeps talking about the next generation making music, but the people most interested in experimenting with AI seem to be older guys like Dre. That tells me something.

The podcast also had Dre and Cube talking about Dre's decision to sign Eminem, his reverence for the late Run-DMC producer Larry Smith, and his plan to step away from music for a while. (Dre hasn't released any music in a long time, but he apparently still spends all his time in the studio, and he wants to step away from that.) You can watch the full conversation for yourself below. The AI talk starts at the 27:36 mark.

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