Artificial Intelligence is an existential threat to visual artists in the music industry. With a prompt as simple as "heavy metal album cover," programs like Hotpot and Magic Studio can create an image in a matter of seconds, placing the livelihood of human artists who've spent a lifetime honing their craft at risk.
Deicide (recently spoken about), Pestilence (read more here), and Hour of Penance (read their statement here) infamously used AI to create their latest album covers, while High on Fire's new "Burning Down" video is also AI-generated. On an aesthetic level, all three AI-generated works are visually unappealing, but the backlash these bands faced from the online metal community stems from a belief that artists should be supporting other artists, especially in a post-COVID economy that's become increasingly hostile to creatives.
Human artists have already lost job opportunities to AI. British artist Sam Shearon has created visual works for Iron Maiden, Rammstein and Slayer, along with album art for acts like Rob Zombie, Ministry and Filter. Shearon, a longtime Deicide fan, once hoped to add the death metal band to his client list, so he reached out to frontman Glen Benton on Instagram.
"This was maybe a year and a half ago," Shearon explains. "[Benton] had seen some of my work that I'd sent him. He said, 'Sounds good, we'll talk when the time comes.' So I thought, 'Oh great, that's cool.' The next thing I know, a friend of mine said, 'Have you seen the new [Banished by Sin] album cover? It's AI,' and I said, 'Oh no, you're joking.'"
Shearon continues, "I would guess that they've actually paid someone to make an AI piece, which almost doubles the icky feeling, the joke of it all. If that was paid for, they've been robbed."
Shearon says he doesn't mind healthy competition with other artists — he's lost out on album cover opportunities before — but the prolific painter says it feels different to lose a job to AI.
"We are being devalued by something that has no value," Shearon says. "It is a tool, we have to move with the times, we have to see how this is going to fit into our lives, because it's not going away."
Deicide ultimately chose to keep their AI-generated album art, with Benton publicly mocking the backlash he received. Pestilence, however, chose to ditch the AI cover for their 2024 album, Levels of Perception, after a heated online back-and-forth with fans.
Pestilence argued the human vs. AI question by essentially throwing the cover artist for their 1989 album, Consuming Impulse, under the bus. "How is the [Consuming Impulse] cover way better than the [Levels of Perception] one?" Pestilence posted on Facebook. "Are we so caught up in the past that we do not embrace technology?"
Even after a fan on Facebook pointed out that the Consuming Impulse artist, Niall Gareth "Squeal" James, had died in 2022, Pestilence frontman Patrizio Mameli continued pressing the issue. Mameli even wrote, "Like we keep track of who's still amongst us or isn't."
One of Pestilence's most vocal critics was Begravement frontman Ezra Blumenfeld. The fellow death metal musician stated that even though his band is much smaller than Pestilence, they've always prioritized paying artists for their album covers.
"With bands using AI artwork, it's both a cop out and it's taking an opportunity away from someone who may have spent decades honing their craft as an illustrator or painter," Blumenfeld says. "Our newest album that we put out in August, the album cover was drawn by a guy in Indonesia for like $200. It's really not expensive, especially if you're a bigger band like Deicide or Pestilence."
Blumenfeld continues, "A lot of classic death metal records – the album cover is as iconic or more iconic than the album itself. I want to believe that death metal is still a living, breathing style of music that can still evolve and change and adapt and progress. I don't feel like it'll be the same if the artwork is so bland and forgettable and devoid of human touch."
To gain further perspective on the reality of AI art, we spoke with AI expert and college professor Dr. Beth Singler. She teaches a program called "Digital Religion(s)" at the University of Zurich, which covers how religion is practiced online, along with "AI new religious movements specifically focused on the idea that AI will become a godlike entity at some point." Heavy stuff.
"What we see increasingly is generative AI being a replacement for more creative labor," Dr. Singler says. "It's going to have a more personal apocalyptic effect for people's careers. Why are we deciding that instead of automating the horrible tasks, we're going to try and automate the things that bring us joy and pleasure and community? It seems like such a terrible approach."
"It's a process of theft," Dr. Singler adds about AI art generators. "These generative systems are very specifically trained on non-consensually acquired artwork. If you come from any position saying, ‘Stealing is bad, plagiarism is bad,' then this is a big concern."
Dr. Singler also points to generative programs like UDIO that create AI-generated music. Ultimately, this is why the "artists supporting artists" argument is so important… because even bands like Deicide and Pestilence will face potential competition from generative AI.
The future may seem bleak — "it can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with" Terminator bleak — but Sam Shearon is focused on the sacred human element behind creation.
"As an artist myself, I think we're quite safe," Shearon says. "We're always gonna do what we're always gonna do. We're not going away. AI will be here forever, but we will outlive them because we're the real thing. We're the ones that will be in museums."
Special thanks to Sam Shearon, Ezra Blumenfeld and Dr. Beth Singler for contributing to this piece.
