In episode #2504 of The Joe Rogan Experience, Joe Rogan sat down with singer-songwriter Skylar Grey for a conversation that touched directly on AI’s reach into music, podcasting and art.
The subject opened when Rogan referenced a prior text exchange with Grey. “You sent me a text message about AI, you know, because you sent me one of your songs and you were like, AI is never going to recreate this,” he said.
Grey replied, “I said something like I don’t think it’s capable of writing stuff with this much emotion yet.”
Rogan agreed and said, “It’s not real, you know. It sounds cool. That’s what AI does. There’s cool songs that come from AI. But there’s always going to be a thing where you know a person wrote it.”
He continued, “That they sat down and they wrote it and there’s this connection with their spirit and their creativity that comes out and that’s what people love about music. I like AI music because it sounds cool but I know what it is. I know it’s just a robot.”
Grey framed the technology as the latest in a long line of tools musicians have adopted and normalized: “When autotune first came out people were b**ching about that. It’s just like all these technological advances. I see them as just tools that creatives can use to get their vision across.”
Rogan acknowledged the comparison but pointed to what makes this moment different.
“The thing that’s weird now is that they’re making entire songs,” Rogan said. “Like they can make a total Skylar Grey category. They sound really good. You know, that’s what’s crazy.”
Grey pointed out that AI is no longer just imitating style but directly reproducing artists’ voices. She warned that the technology is only going to become more convincing with time.
“It’s going to get better, you know, because it’s so new,” he said.
The conversation later shifted toward AI-generated podcasts and deepfake content. Rogan revealed that fake versions of his own show are already circulating online.
“There’s an entire podcast with me that I never did,” Rogan said. “There’s a whole conversation with me and Steve Jobs. I never met Steve Jobs. It’s just me and Steve Jobs talking about stuff.”
He also explained that people are now creating fabricated guest appearances using AI versions of his voice.
“There’s definitely ones of me talking to people I’ve never talked to because people pretend they’ve been on the show,” Rogan said. “You know, like for fun. And then they’ll have a whole conversation with me. It’s very strange.”
Rogan described the implications of AI as a growing blur between reality and fabrication.
“The lines between real and not real are getting very blurry,” he said. “Like it’s an introduction to the Matrix. We’re getting just these little clouds. Then eventually we’re going to just be in the full cloud of the Matrix.”
He added that even professional media figures are already falling for fake AI-generated material online.
“There are prominent news people who’ve reposted stories with videos in them that were like straight out of a video game,” Rogan said.
Despite his concerns, Rogan suggested that AI may ultimately push people to appreciate human-made work even more.
“I think that’s what’s going to happen a lot with AI,” Rogan said.
Grey agreed and argued that imperfections may become even more valuable in the future.
“I think it’ll make us value real human-made art more,” Grey said. “And value like nuance and mistakes and things not being perfect, you know?”
