What do artists, actors, writers and musicians say about AI?

Sixteen people from film, music, writing and broadcasting, and the most united group in the register, because the technology arrived for them first and personally. Stephen Fry heard his own cloned voice and realised it could be made to read 'a call to storm Parliament'. David Attenborough said he was 'profoundly disturbed' to find his identity being stolen. Scarlett Johansson found a voice 'eerily similar' to the one she had declined to give. Paul McCartney and Elton John told the British government its job was to protect creators. Nick Cave wrote that 'data doesn't suffer'. Ben Affleck said AI can write verse that sounds Elizabethan and 'cannot write you Shakespeare'. The dissenters are Kazuo Ishiguro and Grimes, who think the machine may make something new, and Guillermo del Toro, who worries about 'natural stupidity'. Each line is dated and linked.

This is one of nine slices of the register of what the world's leaders say about AI, which sets out how every quotation was found and checked twice against its source. 16 artists, actors, writers and musicians, 16 quotations, grouped by region.

UK#

The danger is for young artists, they haven't got the resources to keep checking or fight big tech. It's criminal and I feel incredibly betrayed.

Elton John, Musician, United Kingdom. Interview on BBC One's 'Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg', 18 May 2025. MusicTech (reporting the BBC interview). John objected to UK proposals that would let AI firms train on copyrighted music without a licence.

We're the people, you're the government. You're supposed to protect us. That's your job. So you know, if you're putting through a bill, make sure you protect the creative thinkers, the creative artists, or you're not going to have them.

Paul McCartney, Musician, United Kingdom. BBC interview on the UK government's proposed copyright exception for AI training, 25 January 2025. CBS News (reporting the BBC interview). McCartney urged ministers not to weaken copyright in a way that would let AI developers use songs without paying their writers.

…I am profoundly disturbed to find that these days my identity is being stolen by others and greatly object to them using it to say what they wish.

David Attenborough, Broadcaster and natural historian, United Kingdom. Statement to the BBC after AI clones of his voice were used to narrate partisan news bulletins, November 2024. The Independent via AOL (reporting the BBC statement). Attenborough objected to synthetic versions of his voice being used to deliver news commentary he had not spoken.

It could therefore have me read anything from a call to storm Parliament to hard porn, all without my knowledge and without my permission.

Stephen Fry, Actor, writer and broadcaster, United Kingdom. Speech at the CogX Festival, London, after playing an AI clone of his own voice, September 2023. Fortune. Fry told the audience his Harry Potter audiobook narration had been used to build a synthetic version of his voice that could be made to say anything.

It's not just that A.I. might produce a novel that you can't distinguish from an Ian McEwan novel. It's that I think it might produce a new kind of literature, like the way modernism transformed the novel. Because A.I. does see things in a different way.

Kazuo Ishiguro, Novelist and Nobel laureate in literature, United Kingdom. Interview with TIME on the publication of his novel 'Klara and the Sun', 2 March 2021. TIME. Ishiguro said AI might create a different form of literature rather than imitate existing fiction.

Europe#

A technology is good when the human beings whose work made it possible are not erased by it, when they consent to it, when they share in what it creates

Björn Ulvaeus, Songwriter, ABBA co-founder and President of CISAC, Sweden. Keynote at the United Nations AI for Good Global Summit, Geneva, 13 July 2026. CISAC (cisac.org). Ulvaeus called for international rules giving creators consent over and a share of the revenue from AI trained on their work.

North America#

AI can write you excellent imitative verse that sounds Elizabethan; it cannot write you Shakespeare.

Ben Affleck, Actor and film director, United States. Onstage interview at CNBC's Delivering Alpha conference, November 2024. Fortune. Affleck argued that AI will cut costs in the less creative parts of film-making but cannot supply the taste and judgement that authorship requires.

In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity. I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected.

Scarlett Johansson, Actor, United States. Written statement issued to news outlets about OpenAI's 'Sky' voice, 20 May 2024. NPR. Johansson said she had declined OpenAI's request to use her voice and that the released voice closely resembled hers.

…I think that we will get into the equivalent of a nuclear arms race with AI, and if we don't build it, the other guys are for sure going to build it, and so then it'll escalate.

James Cameron, Film director, Canada. Interview with CTV News, 19 July 2023. GameSpot (reporting CTV News). Cameron said the military use of AI, rather than its use in screenwriting, is what he considers the serious danger.

If creators aren't compensated fairly, they can't afford to create. If writers aren't paid to write, they can't afford to write.

Nora Roberts, Novelist, United States. Statement issued with the Authors Guild open letter to the chief executives of OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, Stability AI, IBM and Microsoft, 18 July 2023. The Authors Guild (authorsguild.org). Roberts supported the Guild's demand that AI companies seek permission and pay for copyrighted books used in training.

We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines and big business who cares more about Wall Street than you and your family.

Fran Drescher, President of SAG-AFTRA and actor, United States. Press conference in Los Angeles announcing the SAG-AFTRA strike, 13 July 2023. Al Jazeera. Drescher framed the actors' strike as a response to streaming, digital distribution and AI changing the industry's business model.

I feel like we're in the end of art, human art. Once there's actually A.G.I., they're gonna be so much better at making art than us…

Grimes, Musician, Canada. Interview on Sean Carroll's Mindscape podcast, 21 November 2019. Consequence. Grimes predicted that artificial general intelligence would surpass humans at making art and that live music would become obsolete.

Latin America#

People ask if I'm worried about artificial intelligence, I say I'm worried about natural stupidity. It's just a tool, right?

Guillermo del Toro, Film director, Mexico. TIFF Visionaries keynote talk at the Toronto International Film Festival, 8 September 2023. The Hollywood Reporter. Del Toro argued that the value of AI output depends entirely on the human using it and that animation remains a human artistic medium.

Africa#

Governance scares me, job losses scare me, and the loss of creativity scares me. I'm worried, I'm concerned, but I'm not afraid.

Youssou N'Dour, Singer-songwriter and Vice-President of CISAC, Senegal. Panel discussion at CISAC's General Assembly conference on AI and creators' rights, 2 July 2026. CISAC (cisac.org). N'Dour listed his concerns about AI while saying creators should engage with the sector rather than fear it.

Asia#

Whoever made it gives no thought to pain. It's very unpleasant. You can make horrible things if you want, but I want nothing to do with it.

Hayao Miyazaki, Animation director and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, Japan. Filmed meeting at Studio Ghibli shown in the NHK documentary 'Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki', responding to a demonstration of AI-generated animation, 2016. Kotaku. Official English translation from Japanese. Miyazaki reacted to an AI-generated animation of a crawling figure by saying its makers had no understanding of pain or disability.

Oceania#

Songs arise out of suffering, by which I mean they are predicated upon the complex, internal human struggle of creation and, well, as far as I know, algorithms don't feel. Data doesn't suffer. ChatGPT has no inner being, it has been nowhere, it has endured nothing, it has not had the audacity to reach beyond its limitations…

Nick Cave, Singer-songwriter, Australia. His newsletter The Red Hand Files, Issue #218, answering a reader who sent him a ChatGPT song written 'in the style of Nick Cave', 16 January 2023. The Red Hand Files (theredhandfiles.com). Cave argued that songwriting depends on lived human struggle that a language model cannot have.

Three complaints, one question#

The artists make three complaints. The first is identity: Fry, Attenborough and Johansson describe a voice or a likeness used without consent. The second is livelihood: McCartney, John, Nora Roberts, Fran Drescher and Youssou N'Dour describe work taken or priced away. The third is the nature of the thing: Cave, Miyazaki, Affleck and Björn Ulvaeus say what a machine makes is not what they make, because it has 'been nowhere' and 'endured nothing'. All three reduce to a question of who decided. Nobody asked Fry. Nobody asked the songwriters. Ulvaeus's test for a good technology, that the people whose work made it possible 'consent to it' and 'share in what it creates', is a decision-rights test.

The two who think it might make art#

Ishiguro, in 2021, said AI might produce 'a new kind of literature, like the way modernism transformed the novel'. Grimes, in 2019, said human art was ending. Both spoke before the current models and both are included because a register that only records the complaints would be dishonest about the range. Del Toro's line is the third position: the tool is neutral and the danger is the person using it, which is the position most of the business slice holds and few of the artists share.

The decision that stays with you#

What the artists describe is a handover made without consent, and the questions they ask, who agreed to this, who is paid, who can stop it, are the questions an organisation should ask before any decision is handed to a machine: which decisions it may make, who can stop each one, what people must remain able to do without it, and how anyone would know if it went wrong. That is the argument of Rules Before Tools, and the measurable risk sits there, in the handover of decisions to machines and what happens to human judgement afterwards.

What these quotations do not show#

The slice skews to the United Kingdom and the United States and to people with a legal or legislative fight in progress, which is when artists speak on the record. Miyazaki's remark is from 2016 and was about an animation demonstration, not about the models that arrived later; the widely shared 'insult to life itself' comes from a different translation of the same exchange and is not used. McCartney's and John's words are read from reports of BBC interviews rather than from the BBC. No sportsperson, painter or architect is here yet, and Tom Hanks, Cate Blanchett, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King and Salman Rushdie were sought and not verified at source in this pass.