Ministry's Al Jourgensen Shares Concern Over the Future of A.I.

"I don't have to be Nostra-dumbass to know this is not gonna end well," Ministry's Al Jourgensen told Full Metal Jackie on her weekend radio show while discussing modern artificial intelligence and where it's going.

Within the discussion, Jourgensen pointed out there are great applications for artificial intelligence such as solving math equations for helping to cure diseases, but expressed concern over who ultimately is programming it and whether it is being used for humanity and society or for profit.

He also shared his own experience essentially using A.I. to make fun of A.I. in their videos. He spoke of the concern of A.I. becoming more sentient, something he experienced making his videos, and wondering what guardrails were being implemented. "It really depends on the human handlers, And the human handlers in charge are all corrupt and part of the system. So I don't see good things coming from A.I.," he shares.

Having used A.I. to essentially mock A.I. and get a better feel for things, he revealed he eventually decided to just stop and "break up" with the companies that he was using. "Right now, A.I. is just Google, ChatGPT. But what's coming around the bend, I've experienced. And I don't have to be Nostra-dumbass to know this is not gonna end well," he concluded.

Within the chat, Al and Jackie dig into Ministry's final album, Hate to Go, his reasons for wrapping up his career and he confirms that he is indeed planning to be a goat herder in his post-Ministry days.

Al also shares that after railing against certain politicians, he's come to see there's a bigger threat that keeps us in this cycle. He also shares his hope for future musicians trying to enact change and he speaks about the most creatively rewarding period of his career. Check out more of the chat below and pick up Hate to Go on Oct. 30.

Al Jourgensen of Ministry is my guest on the show this week. And Al, can you speak about this decision to wrap up what's been a legendary career with this record? Had this been something you'd been contemplating? And does the music at all kind of aid in that decision, feeling like you're making a solid statement to end on?

We have been thinking about it for a couple years. After Hopium, I was actually thinking that the last album, Hopium for the Masses, might be the last one. But then talking it over with the band members, which have been in the band for 10 years ,,,.Actually, John Bechtal, our keyboard player, has been in there for 18 years, which is longer than Paul Barker was ever in it. So we've had the same kind of environment and paradigm for a long time. And we decided, nah, us old geezers have one more in us.

So we decided to undertake this a couple years ago. A lotta different variations went in into how to make this record and this and that and how to wrap it all up with a bow. I think we're doing it all in the correct way, where it's not just slapdash and like, "Eh, we quit," and then a year later you're back on tour. Or a year later you got some single coming out.

No. We've come to peace with this for the last couple years, so we're at terms with it and we're really happy with the last record. I think it encapsulates an entire career.

It's got a lot of the humor and sarcasm of RevCo. It's not just Ministry, it's like the career. We're wrapping up the whole thing basically, so I can just go herd goats, which is what I'm gonna be doing now. Just a simple goat herder up in Calabasas.

Wait a second. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Wait. There's actual goats? I didn't know if you were saying metaphorically?

No, no. I just got done with the pen last week. A coyote-proof pen.

Oh my gosh.

Got about 20 goats and if I go to a Trader Joe's or something, they go, "Dude, you're the guy you know." I'm like, "No, no, I get that a lot." "But you got the same tattoos." I'm, like, going, "I know. He copied me, but, like," "I'm just...Nah, I'm just a simple goat herder. I don't know what you're talking about." You know, it's gonna be that kind of lifestyle.

Maybe you should go to Trader Joe's with your goat and then really get off the line.

I will be going to the Farm Feed place in Topanga with my goats and they will know me as the goat herder and not as some crazy rocker. This is my goal and this is what I've been working towards and now I'm here. It's time to herd goats.

The goats I have are beautiful. They're fainting goats, so all you gotta do is yell at 'em, which makes roundup so easy. You just yell at 'em and they fall over and so you just pick 'em up with their legs sticking up in the air and throw 'em in the truck and bring 'em home, Work smarter, not harder. Okay?

I have so many questions about the goats. We're gonna get back to that.

We're talking about Ministry's final record, Hate To Go, and one thing we can always count on is that you are going to speak your mind. It's kind of overwhelming, and I guess that's the point of "Burned Out," but when you start naming off all the countries and conflicts and just bad in the world. It can be daunting keeping up with it all. But how has having this musical outlet helped you cope with the modern times?

Well, it's gone over 45 years. When you're younger, you're shaking your fist in the air at the clouds and going, "This is really a screwed-up place, man. I'm gonna do something about and all that." And now it's just like, "Yeah, this is really a screwed-up place. I think I'm just gonna go in and lie on the couch."

We're still saying the same things, but it's the same system which keeps the same things going. Okay, so this year it's gonna be a left-wing wipeout and we're all gonna be all happy for a couple years and Trump will eventually have to go away and blah, blah, and everyone's happy. But you know, the system swings back.

Remember, I lived through the '60s and in the '60s everyone thought we had changed the world, you know? Woodstock and bell-bottoms and LSD and feminism and all these beautiful things. And the system just bought it out, made a profit off it.

What came out of the '60s now is all the tech bros that don't give a [expletive] if we live or die. They all have their bunkers and they're making AI to just run rampant over all of us and kill us in 10 years. They don't care. And that's what the '60s provided.

So everything swings in a pendulum and right now it seems to be like everyone's sick of this authoritarianism and blah, blah, blah. That's good. We'll get a little new bump in social forwarding, but not without the system still making a profit off of it.

So it's the system is what matters. It's not Trump, it's not Bush, it's not Reagan, it's that all these people I've been yelling about for years. I realized after the Bush albums that it's the system. These people are just as much puppets as we are. So let's start getting into the minutiae and the bread and butter of it all.

And at a point, I'm 68 years old now, I just don't have the fight left in me.

Ministry, "Burned Out"

We were just talking about using music as an outlet for everything happening in the world. And after more than four decades of speaking your mind through Ministry, you were talking about how maybe it's time for a younger generation to pick up some of that fight.

I'm really hoping the younger generation maybe picks up on some of the themes that we did which are applicable even to today's society with social media and how everything's changed. It's a whole different society than when I started.

You remember back in the days that to get a hit record, it was payola for DJs. Now it's algorithms and corporate people decide who's gonna be the next America's Got Talent or Eurovision or whatever. It's become so much more refined now than the naivety of the days of just like, "Let's just pay off some rock DJs and we're gonna make this a hit," or something.

The whole thing is just so algorithmed out now. And we make fun of that on this record, obviously. If you've seen the videos or anything, we use A.I. to taunt A.I. We use humor to cut through what the system has done to us. Regardless if it swings left, regardless if it swings right, it's still the same system.

The problem is with everything swinging right and left and everyone having polarized opinions on everything. Right-wing, left-wing. You're either this or that. In the meanwhile, the planet is disintegrating because we just ignored that for our petty differences and political styles and let the planet just erode as what we were just talking about a second ago.

With your coastlines going to hell right now with this Kelvin wave and El Niños and 15,000 Pacific storms coming. This winter in California is gonna be brutal. This is no hoax. This is not like Chicken Little crying, "The sky is falling." This is reality.

You can have your political opinions, but there is one thing that you cannot do, which they've tried to do as all authoritarian people try and do, is to distort the facts. Facts are facts, okay? It's like 2.5 degrees warmer than usual, which leads to bad stuff, okay? And this is fact. So you can call it a hoax all you want, this and that.

This is the kinda stuff that I think the only way you can get through the polarization of societal opinions is to use humor and sarcasm. To go like, "Look, this is really dumb. What we're doing is dumb and we're gonna point out how dumb it is instead of pointing out how angry we are about it." It's already entrenched, so all you can do is, to me, is to use humor ... Because humor transcends party lines, unless if it's a direct attack on one party line or the other, as is wont to do.

But if you just use common sense humor and sarcasm to bring a point across, I think you can unite people to realize that we all kinda are on the same boat. We kinda gotta fix this stuff.

Al, we were just speaking about voicing your opinion through music, and sometimes it can feel cathartic. Sometimes it feels like you're speaking out into the void. We've seen music serve as a great platform reflecting the times at certain points in our life and also seen periods where that's not as prevalent. What is your hope for the artists of today and those coming along? Do you see the current music landscape as an environment where you can still take a stand and potentially make a difference?

Well, yes, to this point you can still take a stand, but the music environment as you know, has changed so much over the last couple decades that it's completely foreign to me, which is one of the reasons that we've decided to hang it up.

It's just not something for a bunch of old people to be shouting at the clouds about. This is for the younger generation to do something about it, because it affects them.

I'm gonna be dead in 10 years at my age. Let's just say, as an average. I'm not like being macabre. I'm just saying 10 years from now, who knows what A.I.'s gonna do? Who knows what the planet's gonna burp up for us? Who knows what kind of leadership we're gonna have to steer us through these things? We do know that the system has been corrupt for millennia, so that's just not a recent thing.

This goes back to the Mesopotamians and Egyptians and through the Middle Ages. It's always the power base that exploits the exploitable. Done. Okay, so that hasn't changed, and Ministry was never gonna change that. We could change our little slice of it and all that, but what matters is that our music over the 45 years, if somebody in the future generation of musicians, which trust me, I wouldn't wanna be a band starting out right now fighting against algorithms to see if you're valid, you know?

Or writing for the algorithms, which is part of it.

I wouldn't wanna be a band now. But the ones that are, if they could take some solace, some guidance, some credence to what we've been saying for this long in time, it's up to them to figure out in a changing society what they need to do to change the society from the top down.

Not from the bottom up. It's from the top down. We have to take on the system and right now we were never in a position to take on the system because the system has always run us. Maybe someday in the future, somebody will look back on a lyric or a song that we had that inspired them and they may be in a position because of whatever society is at that point in time, where they may actually be able to do something about it and that's your only hope.

We never thought we were world changers. Although when you're young, you do. You feel that way. Like, "Ah, this, this is really gonna piss them off. We're gonna make a change," and it never happens. But no, to be a band right now? Nah, I don't envy you and actually I admire you if you can cut through the bull and actually get your word heard through the algorithms.

Al, we're talking about obviously this new record, Hate To Go, and with this new record, you're always topical and on point. We've got the very timely "Singularity" on this record. Technology just keeps advancing, but what does that mean for modern humanity? There's a fear and I'm sure a lot of unknown when it comes to creative people and artificial intelligence. Where do you see this ultimately going?

We've been getting a lot of guff for using A.I. to make fun of A.I., which I guess they missed the joke there. Okay? But,"Oh, they're using AI for this." Yes, of course we are, to show you how dangerous this is and how ridiculous this is.

But the point is A.I. in and of itself is not harmful except that the algorithms, the programming that goes into it, are done by a select few which are only in it for profit above all else. Just forget humanity, forget our society, forget everything. It's the bottom line and profit for that particular company, whether it's Altman or Musk or whoever.

And even they're starting to freak out now because now the A.I. is telling them to go F yourself. We're in control now. And so this 10-year thing is not a hoax. But it's 10 percent that we could be wiped out in 10 years. I think it's gonna be more than that, but unless there are some guardrails put in.

And it's not just, like, people go, "Well, just unplug it and then it can't do anything." But they've already infected all other systems with their advanced [ways] and you can't unplug everything.

Right.

Then we're back to the Dark Ages. So it's not just as simple as unplugging it for these people that are like, "It's not a threat. Just unplug it." I'd say, "No, it's not like that." But there are ways, like for instance in doing these videos that I just did, I stopped. I will never use AI again.

Obviously, Google immediately diverts you. If you wanna know anything, you go on Google that we're used to. That goes directly to AI and those are pretty benign things. And you know what? A.I. is actually really helpful. It's the same thing as social media.

That was supposed to enter the age of information and it became the age of disinformation. So it started out with bold intentions and it's the same thing with A.I. Okay, so A.I. can solve math problems and give us cures for diseases that we couldn't have done in this lifetime or the next. They can do that. But they can also, with the right handlers programming the right stuff in there, because no matter how dangerous or incredible A.I. is, it really depends on the human handlers, And the human handlers in charge are all corrupt and part of the system. So I don't see good things coming from A.I.

What A.I. could be would be incredible, like I said, from disease prevention to fixing climate change. All these things are mathematical algorithms that they can figure out in a space that humans could never do.

Ministry, "Singularity"

We were just talking about A.I. and, Al, your point that for all the potential good it could do, it still comes down to the people behind it and what they're steering it towards.

But they're not steered towards [good]. They're steered towards getting the most likes on a platform or the most money that goes to the shareholders as opposed to the most beneficial things for humanity. So in that context, A.I. is ridiculously dangerous. In an ideal world, AI would be a wonderful thing.

But in my dealings with it, it's already become so sentient. Whoever says that A.I. is not sentient is a liar or they're stupid, naive, whatever you wanna call it. Because I would give it a suggestion for a video on, say, let's make Trump look even stupider than usual and give him a purple forked tongue.

Whatever. A.I. would get back... First of all, the programmers have put filters on Trump and so you had to use dark web AI to do our videos because the regular, like ChatGPT and all that, have filters that will not let you desecrate our dear leader or anything. So we had to go rogue.

And what we found with the rogue ones was that they would say stuff like, it was like dealing with a neurotic teenager. They'd be like, "Well, I already told you that. I already gave you something exactly like that."

Oh, really? I thought they were all supposed to be nice and like, no problems.

Oh, no. No, no, no,

So dark web A.I. is meaner is what you're saying.

Well, it's not mean. It's like dealing with mean girls. Like, really? Like you're asking me this again? I already gave this to you. And you said you didn't like it. You said you liked it and now you don't like it.

So it's like it's very condescending to like, "You humans," and like, "make up your mind." Like, "You had me do this for you and now you don't like it, so what's the deal?" It's stuff like that. And so literally we had to bargain with it to do stuff.

And when we came to the final product where we're like, "Okay, this is cool," there's a couple times where they wouldn't even talk to us for a couple days. They were mad at us because we rejected their ideas. "Well, wouldn't it be better if Trump hatched out of a reptilian egg instead of just giving him a forked tongue?" And I'm like, "Well, yeah, but that takes time and we don't think that..."

You'd have to bargain with it. And then it would get mad and pissy and not talk to you for two days and wouldn't answer you.

Wow.

And then it would come back. We finally got a thing with it. And then I literally broke up with these companies. I literally had to do like a breakup letter.

"No, It's not you, it's me."

Yeah, yeah. It's one of those deals. It was so weird, man. And that's where we're at today. Okay?

Scary.

Just so you know. Like right now, A.I. is just Google, ChatGPT. But what's coming around the bend, I've experienced. And I don't have to be Nostra-dumbass to know this is not gonna end well.

Al Jourgensen of Ministry with us. We're talking about Ministry's final record, Hate To Go. And it feels like you've been getting your ducks in a row for a few years now. The Squirrely Years Revisited took us back in style to the early Ministry records. Now we're getting a reunion with Paul Barker. And of all places, it's the final song on the final album. What did it mean to you to not only have Paul back in the fold, but for "We're Still Here" to be essentially the last thing people hear off the record?

It meant everything. That was one of the few things that wasn't organic and was pre-planned. The Squirrely Years is a good example of that. I hated that record for decades. And then finally said, "You know, screw it. Let's own it and have fun with it." And that was, to me, in all of my tours of 40 years, that was the most fun I've ever had on tour.

I think people even commented, like, "I've never seen that idiot smile so much." Like onstage just laughing my ass off in our little sequin jackets doing like a lounge act of what we did 20 years ago that I hated. That was so cathartic and that took away so many demons.

And that laid the groundwork for knowing that we could exit gracefully. That laid the groundwork for having Barker to come back in. So Barker came back in. And after 30 years, getting in the studio was like riding a bike. We're used to our roles. We know what to do even though technology's changed, society's changed. But it was like the same kind of thing.

We realized after 30 years, our positions have pretty much been entrenched on how we go about our music. And he's much more atmospheric, more like a Brian Eno. And I'm more like the Lemmy Kilmister or something.

That worked in the '90s, but things weren't so defined back then as, "Okay, you're gonna be Eno, you're gonna be Kilmister." We were still working it out. After 30 years, it was difficult to reconcile us. So we decided, let's do one song from the start from the ground up, you and me, on things that we can agree with and make it work.

It's ironically entitled "We're Still Here." After all these years, yes, Barker and I are still alive. We're all still alive. It ain't gonna last much longer, but we're still here. And so that was part of the joke there, there's so many in-jokes on this last record.

So that was planned. And that went beautifully. And it's a beautiful song. And I'm so glad that Paul and I got to work again together in the studio. It was wonderful.

Al, while this is the last album, there's still plenty of touring ahead. We've got European dates in April. There's gonna be more U.S. shows to follow. Knowing that this is a final run, do you allow yourself time to sort of take this all in? Do you give yourself longer to stick around in certain cities? Do you have places around the world that have become among your favorites to always visit?

Yes, yes, yes and no. In order of the question. This is pretty logistically intense to do this. So no, we don't have any favorite spots that we're able to spend extra time in because after this, I'll have plenty of time to spend extra time in my favorite places without having to do a tour.

It's gonna be a comprehensive tour. We're gonna cover something from all 18 albums on any given night. The set will change. It'll be an hour and a half to two hours. Grandpa's gonna actually have to work for a living here. It'll be a pretty comprehensive show.

We're gonna do a lot off the new record because the new record I find particularly amusing. Okay? So we'll do a bunch off this, but it'll be pretty comprehensive. Barker will be a part of some of that. Other people that have been involved with Ministry over the years. We're tying up all the bows, man.

There's gonna be a lot of emotional moments over the last tour. That's the funny thing is that what the Squirrelly Years tour got me used to was actually giving a [expletive] and having emotional moments onstage of just like ... certain cities you could feel the love coming out of the crowd and yet they felt my hate coming for that album for 20 years.

So it was very dichotomous. It was very weird emotionally, but it prepared me for this.

Al, you mentioned earlier there are gonna be some emotional moments on this final tour. But before you can even get to that part of it, there's a lot that goes into making sure you can bring the show to as many people and places as possible one last time. Is that where your head is at right now?

So right now I'm just into the logistics aspect of it, just to make this work and try and fit in all the continents as much as we can. We'll do what you're able to and to make sure everyone gets one last chance. And to make them know especially this is their last chance.

This isn't Mötley Crüe coming back next year. This isn't Slayer coming back next year. This isn't Anthrax playing every other year. They all announced their retirements. I did in 2010 or so, but I was physically unable to play. I had 12 ulcers. I was bleeding out every orifice. And until that was solved, there seemed no point in doing any more records or anything outside of eating baby food and being hooked up to IV tubes. So I had that moment in my life.

This moment I'm going out on my own terms. This has been planned, so this is not like something like, "Oh, we need money. We better go do another tour," or something like that. It ain't gonna be like that. This is very, very planned and it's also very satisfying that you get to go out on your own terms without having to come back and do something stupid, because I've made a fool of myself enough times over 45 years. I don't need to do it again. Eventually you learn lessons.

So yeah. This is our last one. We're gonna try and make it as fan-friendly as possible so people get the right mixture of the four decades or so and wrap it up. Each night will be, will be special.

And each night will be different for the most part because we're actually having to learn a lot of songs. I didn't know I had 260 songs.

That's a lot.

Most them are crap. But we figured 40 of them are pretty good. But we can't do 40 of them a night, so if we do 20 of them a night and then we have 20 that we could put in and out, each night could be special. We've even planned it down to that. You know? So this is not some spur of the moment thing like, "Meh, eh."

This is clearly very, very well thought out.

Yeah.

Al, with this being a time of reflection, I'm sure that there have been highs and lows throughout your career. During what period of time do you feel you were most creatively satisfied with what you were doing and putting out into the world?

Okay. This is gonna sound cliche, but really the last few years. The last few albums, Moral Hygiene, Hopium and this one. Being in the studio and doing what I do felt like putting on your most comfortable pair of slippers. The rest of it produced some good results, some bad results.

But either way, the blood pressure was up. I have now maintained for the last seven years a blood pressure of around 120 over 80.

Whoa.

So those have to be my favorite albums on blood pressure alone. Okay? If you wanna look at it medically, the last three have been my favorite.

It's Full Metal Jackie. Al Jourgensen of Ministry with us. You laughingly commented that it was time to herd goats, which I now know was literal.

No, it is true. Yeah.

We're gonna talk more about that. But in all seriousness though, what is Al Jourgensen like off the road or during downtime? Do you have other things that you're looking forward to? And do you feel like you might still be involved with music even if it's not under the Ministry umbrella?

As of this point, no. That's the whole point of working your ass off for a while, getting the gold watch and the pension and then going off. Last thing you wanna do is go back to the same job, you know? You know what I'm saying? That's the whole point, isn't it?

Yeah.

If something comes up where some crazy director with a crazy script decides the only person that can do this soundtrack is me, then I'm like, "I will consider this kind of stuff." But I'm not like actively seeking out a new career. I have goats to tend to and I also have my anonymity.

For the first time in my life, I'm gonna be like just a hermit. It's a nice lifestyle. Seriously, like, what am I like off the road? I hate to say it, but it's kinda like the Unabomber. It's like I'm in a cabin, far away from people (laughs)

I don't know if the Unabomber was hanging out.

Yeah, maybe not the right metaphor.

Yeah.

But I'm not writing manifestos or anything. And I don't plan on blowing anything up. But I'm just saying

Just wanna sure we clarify that.

You're a smart person. You've been through a lot and you just wanna get away from it all. Take time to absorb what's happened to you over the last 45 years. That takes a while. This is like literally PTSD that I'm talking about here.

It's not something that I'm trying to postpone it. I'm meeting it head-on and going, "You know what? I have to deal with this. I need time to reflect and I need time to process it."

I just need a couple years, me and my goats. And maybe when I'm around 72 or 73, I'll call someone and go, "I'm ready to let you read my diary or something." And hopefully I won't get arrested for it or something.

Seriously, again, I am not the Unabomber. But I'm just saying that he couldn't have done what he did without isolation and reflection before he decided that things were so screwed up that he had to build bombs and I'm saying I'm not doing that and nor do I want the knowledge to do anything like that.

But I'm just saying, isolation and reflection is a good thing. I don't need to keep going. And then a couple years isn't like, "Oh, I wanna get right back into that." No. That defeats the whole purpose of what I've been doing. So that ain't gonna happen, but I do need a couple years off.

Al, let me say this. If this is the final interview we ever do together, I want you to know how much I appreciate all the time you've given me over the years when I know you hate this, but you've still been a pleasure and a wonderful friend and one of the most interesting guys I've ever met. And I am so looking forward to your new life and your goats.

You'll meet them.

I want to. Listen, that was the next thing I was gonna say. You have no idea. You are you're gonna be living what my dream is. I wanna herd goats. Literally. I've I've talked about it. I wanna live on a farm with animals as opposed to people.

You know what's great is you're gonna come by my place someday, and I'm gonna not yell at 'em for a week because I don't wanna abuse these things. It's not actually abuse. It's just a neurological condition that they have, if they hear a loud noise, they go into possum mode. They just pass out. Fainting goats.

Have you made them faint yet? Have you seen this happen?

Oh, no. Before I bought them, they let me yell at 'em for an hour, and it works. They just, like, he, "Ah, ah." And, and they just go belly up, and then I just pick 'em up by the legs and throw 'em on a truck. It's just a beautiful roundup. But I will not yell at them for a week and let you come over for a day. And the reason I've done so many interviews with you over the years is you're spectacular .... So I will let you yell at my goats someday.

Thanks to Ministry's Al Jourgensen for the interview. The band's new album, 'Hate to Go,' is available to pre-order ahead of its Oct. 30 release. Stay up to date with Al and the group through their website, Facebook, Instagram and BlueSky. Find out where you can hear Full Metal Jackie's weekend radio show here.

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