Kelly Clarkson Loves AI, But Says AI Artists Shouldn’t Be “Competing With Humans” on Music Charts

Kelly Clarkson is getting candid about what she calls her “controversial” thoughts on artificial intelligence.

While chatting with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang on a recent episode of their Las Culturistas podcast, the Grammy winner explained that while she loves the technology, she doesn’t feel AI artists should be competing on music charts with humans.

“Here’s the thing, I love AI,” she admitted. “There are very amazing things with AI that I’m obsessed with. But also, and I’m very into it artistically too, I have fun with it just like everybody else does. But when you see AI artists competing on a chart with humans, I have an issue. I think there should be a separate chart.”

“It’s welcome to the table. I think it’s really cool and creative what we’re going to create with AI musically, and people that maybe can’t do certain things will be able to do it now. I think it’s a fun field to play in,” Clarkson continued, “but I don’t think that they should be competing with humans.”

“It’s basically like having Olympics and then you’re having robots compete with humans, well who’s going to throw it further? Oh, I wonder. So I’m down with it and I think it’s a very interesting thing and what we’re going to do with it is going to be fun, but I do not think they should be competing,” she added.

AI-generated music has not been banned from Billboard, the music industry standard record chart in the U.S. However, Billboard shared in August that it remains committed to “creating greater transparency around the use of artificial intelligence in music, including identifying songs on its charts and in its editorial coverage that use AI.”

Clarkson acknowledged that AI is “not going anywhere,” and that there are “so many amazing scientific things that are happening” with the technology. But she also expressed the importance of being “able to differentiate” between AI and human work.

“We can’t lose human,” she added. “We can’t lose what that is. But there could be an appetite for both, is what I’m saying.”