I was flipping through an issue of a recently relaunched general-interest music magazine with “Discothèque’’-era-U2-looking “alternative dance group" Rufus Du Sol on the cover. Not my speed. But the back page had a story by the bassist from Guided by Voices about playing a show where his amp actually burst into flames. Okay, I'll read that. Accompanying the piece was what I thought to be an illustration of the bassist on stage with his flaming bass rig. Upon closer inspection, everything was off: The flames were too clean, the lights too perfect, the arms of the crowd all at the same angle, and on the amp was a bunch of random letters aping the Marshall logo. And there was no credit—it was pretty clearly made by AI. What a bummer. An illustrator would have had a field day with that assignment.

Here at CREEM, we don’t use AI to make America’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll Magazine. We pay humans to write stories, take photos, illustrate, edit, sell ads, and design each issue.