Would Queen ever do a digital avatar show like ABBA? Here’s what Brian May said…

Queen guitarist Brian May discussed the development of sophisticated artificial intelligence (A.I.) systems in a recent interview with Leona Graham of Absolute Radio, as per Blabbermouth. May cautioned that because technology is advancing so quickly, there is a chance that humans will lose control. When asked about his own opinions on artificial intelligence, May responded as follows.

I’ve changed, really. In the beginning, I thought, ‘Well, this is just like the Industrial Revolution, and it’s pointless to even think about it ’cause it’s gonna come, and we can’t do anything about it.’ I now feel differently. I feel like we have to resist, and we have to limit its scope. We have to control it very, very seriously and very quickly.

Brian went on to say that while some have expressed worries about electricity and water consumption, the U.K. government has previously supported data centers as a means of promoting economic growth and luring digital infrastructure projects to particular regions.

I hate the business of these data centers coming and destroying our countryside. This is a big threat, in my opinion, and it will only get bigger and bigger and bigger. The more you give, the more they’ll take, and they destroy communities. They destroy the environment. We cannot have this happening in our country. It’s already been destroying communities in America. So my message to Andy Burnham [prime minister of the United Kingdom] is please, this is your job now. You have to put a moratorium on these data centers right now before it’s too late.

Brian went on to discuss additional major concerns associated with A.I., such as the loss of human control over autonomous software agents, the dissemination of widespread false information, and the facilitation of risky cyberattacks.

A.I. has a lot more issues than that, but, to me, there are inherent dangers in creating an intelligence which is able to possibly eventually control us. It’s a very real threat.

The funny thing is they don’t think, these A.I. machines. It looks like they’re thinking, but they’re not really thinking — they are copying, they are stealing from everything. And they can give a very good impression of imitating a human being. But they are not a human being. Unfortunately, they will have a lot of power, though, because they will be able to — well, reverse the control, and it’s already happening. They’re already breaking out. So we’ve got to think very seriously, in my opinion.

It’s hard to eliminate it from your life ’cause it’s there already, as it’s snuck in in various ways, like if you’re Googling something, you’re gonna get an A.I. overview, even if you didn’t ask for it. So it’s very hard to step away from it completely.

In response to a question about whether he and his remaining Queen band members might think about puttingtogether a performance similar to an ABBA-themed digital avatar show, Brian expressed this.

Well, I know what you mean. Yeah, like the ‘ABBA Voyage’ thing. It’s not really a hologram, but it’s an immersive experience, right? Yes, we looked at it very seriously, particularly after I saw the [Las Vegas] Sphere and what The Eagles did with the Sphere, which I thought was amazing. And I spent a lot of time planning out what I thought could be a Queen show. I’ve kind of backed off now because you can’t do it without massive use of A.I., with all the consequences of that.

Now, in some ways, I don’t wanna be stealing the work of other people. If you’re stealing your own work, I’m not quite sure where I stand on it, ’cause you would be stealing from the Queen oeuvre, you know, which maybe is okay because that’s ours. But at the same time, you’re adding to the stresses that A.I. is putting on the world. So, I don’t know. I’m not so keen as I was. I think it would be great to have a permanent place where people could go and feel like they’re seeing us play live in our peak, maybe all over the world, maybe at all points in time. The doors are open, but I don’t know if we’re gonna walk through.