{"id":461238,"date":"2026-06-04T21:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T21:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/461238\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T21:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T21:32:09","slug":"goldman-sachs-ceo-says-its-time-for-artists-to-seize-the-means-of-production","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/461238\/","title":{"rendered":"Goldman Sachs CEO Says It’s Time for Artists to Seize the Means of Production"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon delivered a speech<\/a> to the graduates of the Wharton School about how easily he can make music with artificial intelligence\u2014a message that was not exactly well-received. During an appearance on Bloomberg\u2019s Odd Lots podcast,<\/a> the banker who moonlights as a DJ remixed the message to produce something that sounds a little more revolutionary\u2014even if he\u2019s probably full of shit.<\/p>\n

Near the end of his hour-long conversation with hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway, Solomon once again started in on how amazing AI tools are for musicians. But while his Wharton speech was entirely fawning over the technology, the CEO took a beat to recognize that AI doesn\u2019t work without actual creatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there are a couple of big issues that need to be wrestled through with this,\u201d he said. \u201cThe first is these AI apps are using other people\u2019s content in some way, and the artists aren\u2019t getting in any way compensated for that. And I think you\u2019ve got to think about how you\u2019re going to bring the artist community and their IP in the discussion of this over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, this is still a very ass-backwards way to go about this\u2014these AI labs have already stolen and used the work of artists to train their models without compensation. And because these machines are black boxes, getting any sort of retroactive payment for the material usually requires proving the artist\u2019s work was used in the first place, which can be very difficult. Basically, you\u2019ve got to sue to get paid<\/a>, and the best that most artists can do is get a paltry payout rather than the more difficult task<\/a> of getting the work removed from the training data. The costs will likely outweigh the benefits even if you win.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s at least someone in a position of power recognizing that AI is, in fact, built on the backs of people who were not paid by these companies for their production\u2014and now those companies are salivating at potential trillion-dollar initial public offerings thanks to other people\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Solomon also said that while the technology allows you to generate outputs much faster, \u201cwithout a human being really massaging it and tempering it, I think you\u2019re going to get, at the moment, mediocrity as opposed to really interesting, resonant stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a new spin for the CEO, who played an AI-generated song for the graduating class of Wharton. (That\u2019s right, he treated his captive audience to his personal AI slop.) There, he told the audience how he used an app called Tuno to create an \u201cupbeat house song\u201d that \u201ctalks about why Wharton\u2019s grads should be optimistic about what\u2019s in front of them in the years ahead, and how today is the best day in the history of the world to be in their shoes, and tomorrow will be better\u201d\u2014and bragged that it only \u201ctook ten seconds to create,\u201d and told them there were \u201ctwo more verses and three more choruses\u201d that he (mercifully!) didn\u2019t even play for them. (You can see clips of the speech here<\/a> and here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s all well and good that Solomon believes artists should get paid for their work. But he doesn\u2019t really propose a model for achieving that. Additionally, he\u2019s actively juicing the very companies that he believes should be paying for that work. His bank is leading the SpaceX IPO effort<\/a> and is broadcasting some bonkers projections, like claiming that the company\u2019s AI revenue will grow 100-fold<\/a> by 2030, in a pretty shameless attempt to pump up the company\u2019s stock price for the bank\u2019s own gain. Goldman Sachs is also co-leading Anthropic\u2019s IPO<\/a>, so expect similar lofty predictions to follow for them.<\/p>\n

At least it\u2019s nice to know that Solomon is thinking about all those artists getting screwed while he wades in a pool of cash and listens to AI-generated music, like a rich guy\u2019s version of a land acknowledgement.<\/p>\n