‘I’ve never used AI and probably never will’: Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu reckons ‘fluctuations and imperfections’ are what make music satisfying

Celebrated Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu did not mince words when asked about his stance on using generative AI to make music in a recent interview with JASRAC Magazine. The technology’s experimental use in the arts has already seen the advent of AI “musicians” like The Velvet Sundown, and you might wonder whether a veteran like Uematsu would be allured or even threatened by the ability to spin melodies so quickly with generative AI tools.

As reported by Automaton, Uematsu told JASRAC he “never used AI and probably never will … music produced by people is unstable, and everyone does it in their own unique way. And what makes it sound so satisfying are precisely those fluctuations and imperfections.”

Uematsu has shared concerns about the changing face of videogame music before. Last year, he said there’s a worrisome wave of game directors content with “Hollywood-style” music, adding even then that AI tools would prevent composers from “reaching deep down inside yourself to find aspects unique to you and then expressing them.” More recently, he lamented a perceived stagnation in game music, with too many composers aping John Williams.

Uematsu seems to want a weirder, wilder median for videogame music. Definitionally, genAI can’t produce anything that isn’t a reflection of the data it trained on, and compelling imperfections are what human artists do best. Uematsu told JASRAC that the problems he perceived in the industry aren’t a technological shortcoming, just a creative one.

“I feel like it already reached its ‘final form’ when musicians became able to use their studio recordings in games. Another advancement was binaural audio, and we’ve already made it a reality in Final Fantasy X. However, it is a question of how much players are going to demand it in the future,” he said in the interview.

He conceded that AI tools may help composers with certain aspects of creation, like “how smoothly they can switch between certain sounds,” but also told JASRAC, “I think it still feels more rewarding to go through the hardships of creating something myself. When you listen to music, the fun is also in discovering the background of the person who created it, right? AI does not have that kind of background.”