Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan on why he refuses to use AI

Billy Corgan wants folks to know that he is not a fan of artificial intelligence.

In a recent interview with the And The Writer Is… podcast, the Smashing Pumpkins frontman didn’t hold back when sharing his thoughts about using AI to make music.

“You didn’t ask me, but I’m gonna make a declaratory statement. I refuse, refuse, patently refuse to use AI in my music creation,” Corgan says. “Because, to me, it’s a deal with the devil. Simple.”

“Whether it’s the Promethean fire myth or whatever, to me you’re literally leaning into the thing that will destroy you. Period,” he adds. “So that’s why I’m not gonna mess with it, because the pressure, the inspiration, the soul searching, the ‘I’m not sure I got anything else to say,’ that’s all part of the journey that a songwriter needs to go to.”

Corgan goes on to say that by embracing AI, folks are “flirting with the thing that will destroy us as an economy, as a business, as a movement.”

“We’re asking to be eradicated,” he adds. “But I’m saying, on a spiritual level to lean into it is to ask to be wiped out. You’re asking to be wiped out.”