In a new interview with Portugal's Metal Global's Jorge Botas, DARK TRANQUILLITY and THE HALO EFFECT frontman Michaël Stanne joined the discussion on the various dangers, from the minor to the potentially existential, that AI (artificial intelligence) poses. When asked if it's scary that AI will surpass human capabilities in many areas, such as creativity and problem-solving, Michaël responded (transcript by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Yeah, of course. Yes, I like technology. I like new ideas. I like new advancements. But I was very hopeful about 10 years ago. When the internet started to take off in my teens, I thought, 'This is great. Finally, we will have access to all the information we need, and the world will change. Nobody will have to believe anything. We will know because the information is there. It's like the best library in the world, and it's available to everyone. Everyone has access to the same information.' And I dreamed of a world where there is no religion, no belief in pseudoscience, and so on. And I thought, 'Oh, imagine that.' But of course, the opposite happened. Same here (AI). Of course, I think it will be a great tool for many people, and I think in the future we will see it as a great tool, but for now it seems scary because we know what it can do. In the wrong hands, these things can be tools. It's not a tool, it's a tool, but it's a tool to misinform, not to help the creative process. That part is scary, and you have to be very careful about how it's used. And you have to have these safeguards in place so that you can easily see that it's something that's been modified and not the original. But it's exciting because it's new and it's interesting… and it's really hard to understand. Every month, there's a new version with new features, or things that are much better. So these breakthroughs are happening every six months or more, and they're going to go faster and faster. So, yeah, it's scary. I talk about this a lot with my journalist friends, and they're worried too. You could say, sure, AI is not going to replace anyone, but maybe people who really know how to use AI will replace people who don't.
Stanne adds: “You can have fun with it, of course, but you can also use it for the wrong reasons, or it just makes things easier, more rational, boring, less creative. And I think that's the scary thing. The biggest newspaper here in Gothenburg uses it in like one in three articles. And you think, 'Oh, right. OK, is that the way we're going to go from now on?' It just puts the information together like a journalist does, but it's faster, but there's less humanity there, there's less editorial interpretation of things. And if people don't read as much as they do now – they only read the headlines, get the gist of it and then go: 'Right, move on' – and they have a very limited attention span, then this is definitely not going to make things better.”
DARK TRANQUILLITY's latest album, “Endtime Signals,” was released on August 16th by Century Media Records.
In July 2023, guitarist Christopher Amott announced his departure from DARK TRANQUILLITY. In a statement, he said there was “absolutely no ill will” between him and the other members of DARK TRANQUILLITY, explaining that it was “time” to focus on new music that he was “very proud of.” He has since been replaced on tour by Peter “Pepe” Rhys Carmark (HATESPHERE).
Amott, 46, was a founding member of Arch Enemy alongside his brother Michael Amott, and was a member of the band's touring lineup since 2017 before officially joining Dark Tranquility in 2020.
Three years ago, DARK TRANQUILLITY parted ways with drummer Anders Jivarp and bassist Anders Iwers.
Zivaap is an original member of DARK TRANQUILLITY and has participated in all of the band's albums released to date. Iwers joined DARK TRANQUILLITY in 2016 and has participated in the band's last two albums, 2016's “Atoma” and 2020's “Moment.”
Zivalp and Eiwers were subsequently replaced as directors by Joakim Strandberg Nilsson (IN MOURNING, WOLVES WITHIN) and Kristian Jansson (GRAND CADAVER, PAGANDOM), respectively.
