Generative AI is a hot topic in every field, but perhaps nowhere more so than in the world of music. AI-generated artists and songs increasingly invade streaming platforms; signboard chart. Lately, that seems to be happening right before our eyes. It feels like the universal embarrassment these days is finding out you were listening to AI music without your consent.
But despite the divisive nature of the AI debate, it continues. And they are still trying to find ways to validate the use of AI in the arts.
In January 2026, Black Eyed Peas hitmaker will.i.am spoke with CNBC. There he compared the use of AI in music and the introduction of sampling in music production.
“Imagine it’s 1970. We’re talking about jazz here, right?” he said, according to a report from. music tech. “A jazz musician would say, ‘What do you think about these samplers? They’re just sampling what they used to do. Do you think that’s music?’
“We found that it was a form of hip-hop sampling, using technology to reimagine, fragment and recompose,” he added.
Will.i.am seems to see AI as another technological advancement
When it comes to sampling, which is a key aspect of modern hip-hop, Will.i.am isn’t too harsh on AI. He said it comes down to the fact that his career has been built on sampling.
“So I can’t be that critical.” [of] “AI, because I have a career sampling music,” he said. But the examples of AI-generated music and human musicians sampling existing songs aren’t really as comparable as will.i.am might think. But as mentioned above, AI is a hot topic and everyone has an opinion.
Additionally, Will.i.am said he feels AI developers deserve more recognition for their work. “At the core of AI music is a developer, and it’s their art, but you can’t trust their art because they created the algorithms to create it,” he said. “Yes, they borrowed from music. They trained a whole library that was created by humans and that humans should pay for.”
He continued: “In 20 years, we’re going to get to a point where we’re going to be evolving, and we’re not going to train on yesterday’s music. We have to be ready for that, too, because the AI that we’re concerned about doesn’t exist yet, it’s creating it on its own.”
Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation
