Grimes has opened up about the experience of being cancelled and the future of AI while appearing on Julia Fox and Niki Takesh’s podcast Forbidden Fruits. The musician, who has drawn criticism in recent years over her past relationship with billionaire Elon Musk, told Fox that she was “very easy to cancel”.
“I’m very easy to cancel and canceled very often,” Grimes, AKA Claire Boucher, told the hosts. “I’ve always been exceptionally canceled. People call me a ‘techno-fascist’ or whatever else… I agree a lot of things have been mishandled and we’re in this giant hiccup into a different part of civilisation that is extremely unprecedented.”
Grimes: ‘Flesh Without Blood/Life In The Vivid Dream’
“I say a lot of dumb stuff… above average I would say,” Grimes continued, adding she wished people “would approach me in better faith”. “I approach everyone in good faith – if people are being hateful on the internet those people are mad because they want a better world.”
The conversation arose after Grimes revealed she was sitting on a new album, but was unsure what a promo cycle would look like in the future as she has such a fractious relationship with the media.
“I have an album that I’m just really bored of… it’s like two years old and I’m starting to make new things,” Grimes said. “I just became labelless so we can do whatever we want… we departed on good times, but I just realised I can’t be on a label at all because I can’t function normally.”
Earlier in the discussion, Grimes elaborated on her thoughts about artificial intelligence and its role in art. “I’m pretty for it,” Grimes said. “I would say I’m fairly optimistic, I think there are some potential bad outcomes but I don’t think it’s constructive to even discuss that publicly per se.”
Grimes went on to say that there is a “moral imperative to make more positive AI depictions because it’s literally training on the data. It will see itself on how we are seeing it right now, in many ways, and it’s a concern that is brought up often”.
Grimes has spoken about AI many times over the years, and most recently gave permission for people to use to her AI generated voice in their songs – and would split the royalties 50/50. She then unveiled software (Elf.Tech) that would convert other peoples’ vocals into Grimes’ vocals.
On top of all that, Grimes announced she’d be releasing new music in the coming weeks, titled ‘Music For Machines’ and ‘I Wanna Be Software’.
Further Reading
Grimes Says She Hacked Indie Blog ‘Hipster Runoff’ In 2012
Grimes & Elon Musk Announce Birth Of Daughter, Exa Dark Sideræl Musk
Grimes Reflects On A Relationship With A ‘Player Of Games’ On New Song
