Brian May of Queen used a botched AI album cover to argue against the tools

Brian May had Meta AI produce a render of the cover of The Game, Queen's eighth studio album, and posted it to his social media as a lesson for anyone who has not understood the objection to generative AI.

The render fails in the ordinary way and also in a specific one. Metal Injection described it as lacking any real perspective, artistic eye, depth or story, and then noted the detail that settles it: there is a fifth member of Queen on the cover.

"I just had to share this with you guys," May wrote in the caption, before asking whether this is the kind of intelligence that will soon be ruling the world, and suggesting it might be time to realise AI is not needed after all.

The tone then shifted from mockery to something more serious. He said he believes the price being paid for what is presented as inevitable is far too high, and turned to the physical infrastructure: data centres should not be built in the UK, he wrote, because they will destroy the country the way they are already destroying America. He addressed the end of the post to Andy Burnham and signed it Bri.

The side-by-side comparison is the argument. Plenty of artists have gone on record for and against generative AI in creative fields, and what the two images make plain is a simpler complaint than a copyright one: the machine has no eye, cannot be caught by a particular angle and cannot feel.

May is a guitarist and an astrophysicist and a Knight Bachelor, which is a slightly unusual set of credentials for a viral post about image models, and possibly why this one travelled. Indie Hoy covered the same post with the surrounding context of his other recent statements. Luminate has separately found that most people want AI use disclosed. More is on our rock hub.