Brian May Slams AI After Failed Queen Image, Warns the ‘Price We Are About to Pay’ Is Too High

Brian May has once again made his concerns about artificial intelligence unmistakably clear — this time after asking Meta AI to recreate the cover of Queen’s 1980 album The Game and receiving a result that left him deeply unimpressed.

The 79-year-old Queen guitarist shared the AI-generated image on Instagram on Monday, Aug. 11, using the disappointing result as a springboard for a much broader warning about artificial intelligence, creativity and the environmental impact of data centers.

“I just had to share this with you guys,” May began.

He explained that he had asked Meta AI to show him what the cover of The Game looked like.

The output, however, apparently bore enough problems that May responded with sarcasm.

“This is what it gave me ! Good job, eh ?”

But what started as a joke quickly became serious.

May questioned whether the technology being promoted as the future was actually something society needed at all.

“So this is the kind of intelligence that will soon be ruling the world ??!” he wrote. “Well, great. Maybe this is the time to realise WE ACTUALLY DON’T NEED AI !!!”

He then made clear that his criticism went far beyond one inaccurate image.

“But I’m now very serious,” May continued. “I believe the price we are about to pay for this ‘inevitable’ development is way too high.”

May Turns His Criticism Toward AI Infrastructure

May’s post also raised concerns about the physical infrastructure required to support increasingly powerful AI systems.

He specifically criticized the construction of large data centers, arguing that Britain should resist allowing such facilities to spread across the country.

“These hideous data centers” must not be built in the U.K., he wrote.

May argued that large-scale AI infrastructure could damage landscapes and communities, saying such development was already harming parts of the United States.

“They will destroy our beautiful country, like they are already destroying beautiful America,” he wrote.

He then directed part of his message toward Andy Burnham, urging political intervention.

“Dear Andy — you must stop it now. Before it’s too late.”

The remarks connect two issues that May increasingly appears to view as part of the same technological transformation: the effect of artificial intelligence on human creativity and the physical cost of the computing systems required to power it.

The faulty Queen image gave him a simple example of AI getting something wrong.

His larger concern is what happens when society becomes increasingly dependent on technology that he already distrusts.

Queen’s The Game Became the Trigger

The irony of May’s experiment is especially striking because The Game is one of Queen’s most recognizable albums.

Released in 1980, the record featured all four members of Queen — Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon — on its cover.

The album became one of the band’s defining releases and included major songs such as “Another One Bites the Dust” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”

For May, asking an AI system to reproduce or identify such an iconic image might have seemed like a simple test.

Instead, the unsatisfactory result reinforced his skepticism about the technology.

His reaction also reflects a wider question surrounding generative AI.

Even when systems can produce impressive images, music or text, they can still make mistakes, distort details or generate confident but inaccurate representations.

For someone like May — whose career has been built around decades of human performance, songwriting and visual identity — those failures appear to carry broader symbolic meaning.

This Is Not May’s First Warning About AI

May has been publicly concerned about artificial intelligence for years.

In a September 2023 interview with Guitar Player, he spoke specifically about the possible effect of AI on music and the arts.

“My major concern with it now is in the artistic area,” he said at the time.

May predicted that the creative landscape could change extremely rapidly.

“I think by this time next year the landscape will be completely different,” he said.

His fear was not simply that AI would become more powerful.

It was that audiences might increasingly struggle to distinguish between work created by people and work generated by machines.

“We won’t know which way is up,” May warned. “We won’t know what’s been created by AI and what’s been created by humans.”

For a musician who came of age in an era when records were built through physical performance, studio experimentation and painstaking production, that uncertainty clearly troubled him.

“Everything is going to get very blurred and very confusing,” he said.

He went even further, suggesting that 2023 might eventually be remembered as a turning point in the relationship between people and music technology.

“I think we might look back on 2023 as the last year when humans really dominated the music scene,” May said.

“I really think it could be that serious.”

The possibility did not excite him.

“It doesn’t fill me with joy,” he said. “It makes me feel apprehensive, and I’m preparing to feel sad about this.”

Artists Have Been Raising Similar Concerns

May is far from the only major musician expressing anxiety about artificial intelligence.

In 2024, a large group of artists signed an open letter warning about AI-generated music and the potential damage the technology could cause to working musicians and songwriters.

The signatories included Billie Eilish, Katy Perry, Camila Cabello, Miranda Lambert, Billy Porter, Brothers Osborne, Darius Rucker, FINNEAS, Imagine Dragons, J Balvin, Jonas Brothers, Jon Bon Jovi, Kate Hudson, Metro Boomin, Noah Kahan, Norah Jones, Pearl Jam, Sheryl Crow, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder and Zayn Malik, among others.

Their concerns reflected an increasingly intense debate across the music industry.

AI systems can now imitate voices, generate instrumental tracks, create synthetic performances and produce songs in styles closely resembling established artists.

That technological capability raises difficult questions.

Who owns the output?

Who gets paid?

When does imitation become exploitation?

And what happens when listeners cannot easily tell whether a voice belongs to a real performer?

Those concerns have only grown as generative AI tools have become more accessible.

SZA Says AI Is Already Creating Problems

SZA has also spoken forcefully about the issue.

In a March 2026 interview with i-D Magazine, she said she was effectively “at war because of AI.”

Her concern focused partly on what she sees as the disproportionate use of Black musical styles and voices in AI-generated content.

“It’s happening disproportionately with Black music,” she said.

SZA questioned why AI-generated covers of contemporary artists are appearing while those artists are still trying to build their careers and earn from their own work.

“Why am I hearing AI covers of Olivia Dean, when Olivia Dean just came the f— out?” she asked.

“She can’t even collect the streams.”

SZA also criticized the kinds of Black music AI systems sometimes generate, arguing that the results can reproduce shallow or offensive stereotypes.

“I’m also really offended by the type of Black music that’s coming out of AI,” she said. “Weird, stereotypical struggle music.”

Her comments illustrate another concern surrounding generative systems.

The issue is not only whether AI replaces artists.

It is also what kinds of cultural assumptions those systems reproduce when generating new work.

Boy George Takes the Opposite View

Not every major musician sees AI as a threat.

Boy George has taken a dramatically different position.

During a March 2026 appearance on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast, the Culture Club singer said artificial intelligence had become a valuable songwriting tool for him.

According to Boy George, AI has helped him work faster and experiment more freely as a lyricist.

“It really helped me as a lyricist,” he said.

He even claimed to have created a remarkable amount of material using the technology.

“I’ve written like, five albums already with AI,” he said.

His conclusion could hardly be more different from May’s.

“AI is brilliant. Nothing to fear.”

Boy George argued that artists should treat technology as another creative instrument rather than automatically viewing it as competition.

“If you get replaced by a robot, you weren’t trying hard enough,” he said.

He acknowledged that job displacement is a legitimate concern.

“Obviously I care about people losing their jobs,” he added.

But he maintained that the technology also has significant positive applications.

“There’s so many great things.”

A Debate That Is Becoming Increasingly Divided

The contrast between Brian May and Boy George captures the broader divide developing throughout the entertainment industry.

One side sees AI primarily as a tool.

For those artists, it can accelerate brainstorming, assist with lyrics, generate ideas and reduce technical barriers.

The other side sees a much larger threat.

For May and many musicians who share his concerns, AI risks weakening the connection between art and human experience.

Music is not merely sound assembled into a pleasing structure.

It is the product of someone’s memories, failures, relationships, personality and physical performance.

If software can convincingly imitate those elements, May fears audiences may eventually struggle to distinguish authentic human expression from synthetic output.

His latest Instagram post suggests that concern has expanded beyond music.

The AI-generated Queen image became evidence, in his view, that society may be rushing toward adoption without fully considering what is being gained or lost.

The Environmental Question

May’s comments about data centers also highlight another growing issue around artificial intelligence.

Training and operating large AI systems requires substantial computing infrastructure.

Those systems run inside data centers filled with servers that consume electricity and require cooling.

As demand for generative AI expands, technology companies are investing heavily in new facilities.

Supporters argue that those investments are necessary for technological progress and economic development.

Critics raise concerns about energy demand, water consumption, land use and the impact on local infrastructure.

May clearly places himself among the critics.

His warning that Britain could be “destroyed” by large data-center development is deliberately dramatic, but it reflects his belief that the consequences of AI are not confined to computer screens.

For him, there is a real-world cost.

May’s Relationship With Technology Has Always Been Complicated

May is not generally known as someone hostile to science or technological advancement.

In fact, the opposite is true.

Alongside his music career, he has maintained a serious lifelong interest in science and completed a Ph.D. in astrophysics.

Queen itself also embraced technological experimentation throughout its career.

The band’s studio recordings were famous for complex layering, unusual production techniques and ambitious sonic experimentation.

That background makes May’s concern about AI more nuanced than simple resistance to new technology.

His argument is not necessarily that technology should never influence creativity.

Rather, he appears worried about what happens when technology becomes capable of replacing — or appearing to replace — the human creator entirely.

One Bad Queen Image, One Much Bigger Question

The Instagram post began with something almost trivial.

Brian May asked an AI system for an image connected to his own band.

The result disappointed him.

He could have laughed and moved on.

Instead, he used the moment to revisit a concern he has been expressing for years.

How much control should artificial intelligence have over the creative world?

How much infrastructure should be built to support it?

And how much are societies willing to sacrifice because the technology is presented as inevitable?

May’s answer is increasingly clear.

He does not believe inevitability is a sufficient justification.

“Maybe this is the time to realise WE ACTUALLY DON’T NEED AI,” he wrote.

Whether the music industry agrees is another question entirely.

Some artists are experimenting enthusiastically.

Others are organizing against it.

And audiences are already consuming work created with varying degrees of machine assistance.

But for Brian May, the poorly generated image of Queen was not simply a funny AI failure.

It became another warning sign.

The technology may be advancing rapidly, but May believes society still has time to ask whether every advance is worth the cost.