Smokey Robinson

Smokey Robinson (born 1940) founded the Miracles, served as Motown’s vice president, and wrote or co-wrote standards including “My Girl,” “The Tracks of My Tears,” and “Cruisin’.” A Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and Kennedy Center honoree, he is among the last living architects of the Motown sound.

“One of the most dangerous things”

Robinson joined the Artist Rights Alliance open letter in April 2024, signing with fellow Motown legend Stevie Wonder and 200 other artists to demand that AI developers and platforms stop using AI to “infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists.”

He put his fears in his own words in an October 2025 TMZ interview, calling AI “probably one of the most dangerous things that’s ever happened” and warning: “It’s a real scary situation when somebody can just take your image and take your voice and a lot of people don’t even know the difference.” For a singer whose falsetto is one of the most recognizable instruments in American music, voice cloning is not an abstraction — “that’s very scary, especially when you’re in show business.”

His prescription is characteristically practical: own your own image and likeness — as he says he has — and pursue anyone who misappropriates it. He urged fellow artists to take the same protective steps rather than wait for the technology to be regulated away.