LL Cool J
Rapper & actor
Pioneering rapper and “NCIS: Los Angeles” star who frames AI as a neutral tool — good or bad depending on how people use it — and rejects fear as the real danger.
In his words
Artificial intelligence is a tool. The only time that artificial intelligence or things like that are gonna be a problem is when people are afraid of the tools.
Every new technology is a tool. It’s how you use it. It can be a nuclear bomb or it can be a nuclear reactor that creates energy.
Biography
LL Cool J (James Todd Smith, born 1968) is one of hip-hop’s founding commercial superstars, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, and a longtime television lead on “NCIS: Los Angeles.” Decades into his career he has also become a curator and cultural entrepreneur, roles from which he has weighed in on AI.
A tool, not a threat
In a 2023 fireside chat at Nasdaq, LL Cool J repeatedly characterized AI as a neutral instrument whose value depends on human intent, comparing it to technologies that can either destroy or generate power. He argued that fear itself — not the technology — is what makes AI dangerous, and pointed to “human will” as the thing no machine can replicate.
The stance places him among the artists who see AI as an opportunity rather than an existential threat, even as many of his hip-hop peers signed petitions demanding protections against voice cloning.
Where they stand in the war
Who backs them up
Sources & further reading
Canonical record: https://battlelines.ai/topic/ll-cool-j