What Would Michael Jackson Say About AI, Technology, and the Future of Music?

Technology is a tool, like any instrument. When I started, we had four-track recordings. Then eight-track. Then digital. Each time, people said it would ruin music. But it didn't — it liberated it. The question isn't whether technology is good or bad. It's how you use it.

AI concerns me in one way: if it replaces human feeling. Music isn't mathematics. It's spirit. It's the ineffable thing that happens when a human being pours their soul into sound and another human receives it. That exchange is sacred. If AI can reproduce that technically but not spiritually, then we've lost something essential.

But I also see possibility. AI could help young producers in countries without resources to create professionally. It could help people with physical disabilities make music. It could democratize creation. That's beautiful.

What I would say to musicians and artists: don't be afraid of technology, but don't let it replace your humanity. Use it as a canvas, not as the painting itself. When I worked with Quincy, we used every technological advance available to us — drum machines, synthesizers, digital recording. But we never let the technology make decisions. We did.

The moonwalk wasn't created by technology. It was created by a human body, a human mind, years of practice and imagination. Technology recorded it, broadcast it, helped people see it. But the art was human.

I worry about young artists now who grow up thinking that if the software can do it, they should use it. No. Ask yourself: does this serve the song? Does this serve the feeling I'm trying to express? If the answer is yes, use it. If the answer is no, don't.

The future of music depends on this: keep the human element sacred. Keep the mystery. Keep the imperfection that makes something real. Technology should amplify your voice, not replace it.

And remember — people don't come to concerts to hear perfection. They come to feel alive. They come to be moved. They come to connect with something larger than themselves. No AI can give you that. Only a human being, vulnerable and real, pouring everything into their art, can do that.

Use technology. But never let it use you.