Thomas Bangalter, one half of Daft Punk, has made his position on artificial intelligence and music clear: he’s not interested in using AI as a creative tool. The remark came amid discussion of his post-Daft Punk projects and his broader thoughts on creativity.
Bangalter’s post-Daft Punk work — and a quick context
Since Daft Punk’s split, Bangalter has remained active in music and film, collaborating with director Alfonso Cuarón and German DJ Rampa. Those partnerships underline a continued, hands-on approach to composition and production that, according to Bangalter, rests on processes he feels cannot be reduced to verbal prompts.
Why prompting doesn’t sit right with him
Speaking to Chanel, Bangalter framed his creativity as something that operates beneath words. He said: “My relationship to creation and my relationship to art is mostly happening at a deeper level, which does not express itself through words.”
He linked that depth to the way he approaches music-making and dismissed the prompt-based workflow central to many AI tools. In his words: “That’s probably why I’m not really interested in the creative usage of artificial intelligence for many reasons. But the main one probably is because it goes through a verbal expression, which is prompting.”
Bangalter emphasised that the most compelling parts of creation happen outside of intellectual or verbal expression. He described a creative process focused on understanding feelings rather than translating them into words — a method he feels clashes with AI’s reliance on prompts.
Unpredictability, surprise and what machines can’t replicate
Beyond the mechanics of prompts, Bangalter raised a philosophical objection: unpredictability. He said the unpredictable nature of human creativity is essential and cannot be faithfully reproduced by artificial intelligence.
He told Chanel: “Unpredictability, I feel. I feel that unpredictability is what will save this society because everything that happens are surprises. There are bad surprises, but it can only happen also through good surprises, and that’s really the complex world today because on one hand, unpredictability and disruption needs to happen to get us all of this mess.”
Bangalter warned that unpredictability sourced from machines could be risky: “But it cannot happen from the machine because if you have unpredictability from artificial intelligence, then this is very dangerous.” He framed historical change as originating from human impulses and collective derailment, implying that surrendering surprise to technology would shift those dynamics in troubling ways.
Summing up his stance, Bangalter said: “So it’s complicated because we need to surprise ourself and to be more and more unpredictable, and we can’t have technology do that for us.”
What Bangalter’s view signals for artists and fans
Bangalter’s comments underline a core tension in contemporary music: how to balance new tools with the non-verbal, emotional roots of artistic practice. For fans of electronic music, his rejection of prompt-driven AI is a reminder that some artists see creative value in processes that resist translation into simple instructions.
While Bangalter continues to work with filmmakers and DJs, his public scepticism toward AI suggests he’ll stick to approaches that prioritise intuition and human surprise over machine-generated unpredictability.
Bottom line
Thomas Bangalter is clear: prompt-based AI is not a route he wants to take. He argues that the deepest aspects of art are non-verbal and that human unpredictability — with all its risks and rewards — should not be outsourced to machines.
ElectroLouis independently rewrote this report from the cited source material.
