Billy Corgan Refuses to Use AI in Music Creation, Calls Technology ‘Deal With the Devil’

Billy Corgan won't touch artificial intelligence when he writes songs. The Smashing Pumpkins' lead singer drew a hard line about the practice.

"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," he said in an interview with And The Writer Is…. "Because, to me, it's a deal with the devil. Simple."

Corgan thinks the hard parts of writing songs matter most. Doubt creeps in, pressure builds, and sometimes you feel like the well has run dry. That's the point.

"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," he said.

Working with other musicians is different from plugging into a machine. Arguments could break out over who gets credit and how much money each person deserves, but at least real humans with actual emotions created something together.

Musicians who turn to AI might be signing their own death warrant. They're handing over the keys to something that could wipe out their entire livelihood, their whole industry.

"We're asking to be eradicated. We're giving them our information. They already have all our other information. God knows what the labels are doing," he said. "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."

Corgan believes that this shift mirrors what happened when silent films died and talkies took over. Many lost their careers while newcomers who mastered the new tools stepped in. The Smashing Pumpkins will play Lollapalooza in Chicago this July and the Darker Waves festival in Huntington Beach, California, in November.