I doubt the band themselves have a whole lot of say (or even really care that much) over things like this at this point in their career. I'd say management/record label is likely where the blame should be on thus one.
Fuck AI
"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
Sorry if my title didn’t communicate that clearly but I do agree!
This is not AI, this was illustrated by a human being called Hugh Syme, whose work just looks like this. And it's looked like this for ages, since well before gen AI. This is crappy ragebait.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Syme#Controversy_and_criticism
Re: his 2025 Dream Theater album art from that band’s drummer

Syme is who misunderstood the kid gloves reference then?
Why should I bother watching something you couldn't be bothered to create?
There is no "AI". Humans 100% created this.
There is no "AI".
Correct
Humans 100% created this.
Incorrect
No, this was illustrated by Hugh Syme. He's been doing album art forever, and this is just his style.
What was the extent of Syme’s efforts on this? Making each detail and movement, or simply typing what he wanted to see into an image generator? I don’t see it fitting what I’ve seen of his historic style
This will shock you, but I wasn't in the room with him when he made this. But I'm not going to treat artists on a guilty until proven innocent basis.
I don’t understand when someone who is creative in one field uses AI to generate something in another field. Like, how would Rush feel if some visual artist used AI to make crummy knock-off Rush songs with their own art?
I feel like I say this a lot, probably because, AI is trying to force itself into my space every day. Anyhow, As a graphic designer...
I agree 100% that just because it's not your expertise doesn't make it better. I butt up against the need to use music and copy. I don't write and I can't compose music. I'm very conscious to not use AI for either. I just had to grab a 6 sec jingle for a podcast intro to accompany my graphics. I had the option to use AI from a stock music website, but I bought it from a human instead. Kind of sickening they even allow AI junk to be mixed in with human created content and make people pay for it.
Regardless how easy it is to do so, their is always something missing. That human touch. I have to explain it more and more and I'm holding to my guns. No AI in the creative spaces, no exceptions.
My biggest take on it, even if someday it does a better job. What are we saying as a society? That we'd rather give up our creativity and do the menial tasks instead? AI should be handing the boring repetitive tasks, not be the one doing the higher level art, that's just fucked. Where do people think that AI got it's ideas from, it stole it from us! Everything I put out is a piece of me, to have something gobble that up and regurgitate it is beyond offensive.
I don't know, I feel like I'm losing. Probably going to switch careers when I move on to my next gig. Before this their was always extremely low respect for what I do. Now I think no one cares they are putting out garbage, they just want to skip quality for quantity.
AI, by its very nature, is incapable of capturing the human condition.
No matter how extensive its datasets, this will never change. This is because the human condition is just that, flawed and twisted and emotional, in all the ways humans are, and all the ways programs fundamentally cannot be.
A computer program's only goal is to do what it is programmed to do perfectly. An issue arises when it tries to copy, or augment the human condition perfectly.
How can you perfectly augment something that is, by its very nature, unpredictably imperfect?
This is why AI created "art" is so uncanny and soulless; you cannot augment the human condition.
In most cases, I expect that moves like this are by the record company/rightsholders/whoever as a cheap cash-grab rather than the artist themselves. Peter Gabriel is a vocal exception to that.
That may be true in this case, I'm thinking more of small content creators on YouTube or elsewhere. No class solidarity.
Oh no is peter pro AI... Damn it I loved him
Why would you use a recipe to bake a cake when the professional baker down the street already bakes so well?
If the professional baker down the street threw human excrement into their cakes 1% of the time I’d make my own. Same reason I don’t use AI. Except it’s a lot higher than 1% with AI.
So they use premium quality flour and you’re using grocery store Pillsbury. Yes, their cake is going to taste better and yes, you’ll probably prefer they’re cake on occasion, but you also don’t want to drop $40+ on a cake when you can sometimes just get your fox for $5. What’s the harm in letting amateurs create something based upon a recipe when they wouldn’t be able to do so otherwise?
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I really hope it was some clueless person at the label and not the choice of Ged and Alex
“Begin the day with an LLM, a companion sycophantic”
I don't think Neil would approve of this.
Neil Peart stands alone.
Neil Peart was big into Ayn Rand. He would completely support this.
Only early on, like a lot of young men. He learned and grew like intelligent people do and realized her stories are just stories.
Nah. Pretty sure he held onto that libertarian BS until he died.
Nope. He stayed die hard Ayn Rand:
Nearly two decades later, in a 2015 Rolling Stone interview, Peart reaffirmed this worldview, calling himself a “bleeding-heart libertarian”
https://www.thetapesarchive.com/the-evolving-mind-of-neil-peart/
moving from Rand’s stark individualism to what he later called “bleeding heart libertarianism.”
Do you know what 'bleeding heart' means? From your understanding, what is the difference between bleeding heart libertarianism and rand's stark individualist libertarianism? This quote means he was not in favor of Rand's stark individualism and instead favored bleeding heart libertarianism. Why don't you read it that way? Why do you describe Ayn Rand as a 'bleeding heart libertarian'?
Bummer!
I don't feel like the lyrics in later rush reflect that myself. Obviously the anthem era did. Later on a lot of it became more about the human condition
Neil is proverbially rolling in his grave (I can’t determine if he was cremated or not)
TIL the origin of "kid gloves"
The origin is one thing, but even a cursory read of lyrics reveals the meaning, which the music video misses
The irony about all this AI bullfuck is that there is nothing even remotely intelligent about it.
Fake intelligence
:(
Ugh, the faces are so creepy.
Ironically, it's a great visual metaphor for this decision to use AI to generate music videos, since that facial expression looks like someone who only just realized they've shit their pants.
Closer to the Heart has been on heavy rotation lately. Message of the song is as poignant as ever.