Jon Bon Jovi

Jon Bon Jovi (born 1962 in Perth Amboy, New Jersey) founded Bon Jovi in 1983 and drove it to arena-rock immortality with Slippery When Wet, “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “It’s My Life.” With more than 100 million records sold and a 2018 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, he is one of the most durable frontmen in rock — still recording after career-threatening vocal-cord surgery chronicled in the 2024 documentary Thank You, Goodnight.

Signing the ARA letter

In April 2024, Bon Jovi joined more than 200 artists — including Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder and R.E.M. — in signing the Artist Rights Alliance open letter calling on AI developers, technology companies, platforms and digital music services to “cease the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists.” The letter declared that “this assault on human creativity must be stopped” and asked companies to pledge not to deploy AI music-generation tools that undermine or replace human artistry or deny artists fair compensation.

The letter’s grievances were concrete: some of the biggest technology companies were training models on artists’ work without permission, and AI-generated “sounds” were beginning to dilute the royalty pools working musicians depend on. Coverage from ABC News to American Songwriter framed Bon Jovi as one of the letter’s marquee legacy-rock names, alongside Pearl Jam and Sheryl Crow.

Notably, the letter is not a blanket rejection of the technology: it concedes that AI “used responsibly” has enormous potential to advance human creativity, reserving its fire for unlicensed training, voice cloning and royalty dilution.