Nile Rodgers says AI carried out his team’s vision for “The Christmas Song” video
The Chic bandleader says the charity project was storyboarded like a film and would have cost about $100,000 to make conventionally.
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Nile Rodgers has defended using artificial intelligence for an upcoming video for “The Christmas Song,” after online criticism followed footage of the musician undergoing what he called an “AI capture” in a photogrammetry rig.
The Chic bandleader said the creative team, not the software, had conceived the work. “We created everything,” he said, including mood boards and storyboards, and approached it as they would a film. The AI then carried out the team’s directions, he said, with every second of the finished screen work painstakingly created.
Rodgers also challenged critics to reserve judgment until the video was complete. Asked whether a commenter also objected to CGI, he said it was hypocritical to oppose AI while using tools embedded in services such as Instagram, Google and driving directions. Consequence noted, however, that those utility and recommendation systems differ from generative design work.
The visual concept was prompted by Rodgers’ experience watching the Eagles at the Sphere in Las Vegas, which made him imagine stories combining music with extraordinary environments. Images released from the project show Rodgers and the British soul singer Rebecca Ferguson onstage with a giant fuzzy creature, surrounded by smaller fuzzy creatures.
Rodgers estimated that a conventional film production of this kind would cost about $100,000. The video accompanies “The Christmas Song,” his charity collaboration with Ferguson from 2020. He said he had made the song to bring holiday joy to children who are bedridden or ill and often use iPads or similar devices for entertainment, recalling that a child had encouraged him during his first bout of cancer.
The exchange is consistent with Rodgers’ earlier, qualified support for AI. In a 2024 interview with Euronews, he condemned AI-generated vocals that copy another person’s sound, but endorsed technology used for an artist’s own expression. He likened AI to another color on an artist’s palette and compared it with tools such as drum machines, synthesizers and auto-tune.
Rodgers has similarly argued that sequencers and drum machines enabled some bands to make records, despite his own initial resistance to drum machines. The completed video is expected to debut Nov. 20.