Robert Smith

Robert Smith (born 1959) has led The Cure since 1978, shaping post-punk and goth rock across landmarks like Disintegration and returning, four decades in, with 2024’s acclaimed Songs of a Lost World. He is also one of rock’s most stubborn advocates for fans and working musicians — most famously forcing Ticketmaster to refund junk fees on The Cure’s deliberately cheap 2023 tour.

Signing the battle lines

Smith has channelled that same instinct into the AI fight through collective action. In April 2024 he joined more than 200 artists — alongside Billie Eilish and Nicki Minaj — on the Artist Rights Alliance “Stop Devaluing Music” letter, which accused the biggest tech companies of using artists’ work without permission to train AI models and warned that unchecked AI would “set in motion a race to the bottom.”

In October 2024 he signed again, this time the 29-word statement organized by Ed Newton-Rex declaring unlicensed AI training “a major, unjust threat” to creators’ livelihoods — joining Thom Yorke, Björn Ulvaeus, and what grew to tens of thousands of signatories.

Smith has not given extended interviews about AI itself; his position is expressed through what he signs. But it is of a piece with decades of public statements that artists and fans, not intermediaries and platforms, should capture the value music creates.