Roughly once a week, Nick Cave blogs about music, religion, grief, and the infernal state of world affairs through the medium of fan correspondence in his Red Hand Files newsletter. His meatier responses become news stories, and few have traveled so far, or with such fervor, as his 2023 diatribes eviscerating ChatGPT. First, that January, he portrayed a lyric “in the style of Nick Cave” as an omen of the apocalypse and “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human.” A few months later, Cave elaborated that any lyricists using artificial intelligence were “participating in [the] erosion of the world’s soul and the spirit of humanity itself.”
But that was before his friend Andrew Dominik made a music video for Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ “Tupelo” featuring a floating AI Elvis. Dominik—a longtime Cave collaborator and the director of Blonde, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and One More Time With Feeling—had been at work on the video behind Cave’s back. Presented with the result on the song’s 40th anniversary, Cave decided it was “a soulful, moving, and entirely original retelling of ‘Tupelo,’ rich in mythos and a touching tribute to the great Elvis Presley.”
Cave found that Dominik’s AI-animated photographs of Presley “had an uncanny quality, as if he had been raised from the dead, and the crucifixion-resurrection images at the end were both shocking and deeply affecting.” He and his wife, Susie Cave, he added, “were blown away. As I watched Andrew’s surreal little film, I felt my view of AI as an artistic device soften. To some extent, my mind was changed. ‘It’s a tool, like any other,’ said Andrew.”
Far from coming away from this religious experience with his tail between his legs, Cave emerged with a renewed understanding of his own brilliance. “I believe that the ability to change one’s mind is the very definition of strength,” he wrote. “We pursue the truth wherever it may lead, remaining flexible and humble enough to adjust our views as new evidence emerges, regardless of how uncomfortable that may feel. It is ultimately a form of resilience, not a sign of weakness. Rigidity breaks; flexibility endures.” Watch the video below.
