US composer and songwriter Charles Fox said artificial intelligence could never duplicate the masters of music because it came “from their hearts”.
The musician, who wrote 1973 Grammy-winning track Killing Me Softly With His Song, appeared at the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles where he was honoured with a star in the recording category – alongside music stars Paul Williams and Diane Warren.
During his career, two-time Oscar nominee Fox composed the music for more than 100 films including Barbarella, Nine To Five and Goodbye Columbus, and the theme songs for TV series including Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley and Wonder Woman.
“Artificial intelligence scares the hell out of me, I don’t like it at all,” Fox told the PA news agency, after the ceremony.
“As a trained musician, I could write music to sound like Bach, or Beethoven, or Mozart, or Stravinsky, that’s just training, you learn the craft.
“But there’s never going to be a duplicate of any of those masters because it came originally from them, from their hearts, and then the world moves on.
“And so if artificial can produce music that sounds like something else, who cares, who needs it.
“Give me someone who has a real heart, who writes what hasn’t been done. That’s my feeling.”
Fox said he doesn’t know where artificial intelligence will go – “none of us do”.
“People ask me, would I go to a concert of only artificial intelligence – I have no interest in that,” the 83-year-old said.
During his onstage speech, Fox became unexpectedly emotional as he reminisced on his journey into Hollywood.
He told PA: “I’ve been coming by here for years looking at these wonderful stars representing peoples life work, what I didn’t expect is to look out and see so many people I love and know, my family.
“And to think this is here forever, I didn’t expect to get that emotional about it.”
Fox also gave a “shout out” to his granddaughter Ava who couldn’t make it to the ceremony because she is studying in London as a ballet dancer “expecting to go on to a career in ballet”.
Fox, who won an Emmy award in 1973 for his work on TV series Love, American Style, said he requested his star be placed next to his late friends Jerry Goldsmith – who composed the score to the Star Trek franchise – and songwriter Hal David, best known for his collaborations with US composer Burt Bacharach.
