A growing debate has emerged in the Christian music industry following concerns raised by Forrest Frank over the use of artificial intelligence in worship music. Frank objected to the AI artist Solomon Ray topping the iTunes Christian charts, stating, “At a minimum, AI does not have the Holy Spirit inside of it, so I think that is really weird to be opening up your spirit to something that has no spirit.”
Solomon Ray is an AI persona created by artist Christopher Jermaine Townsend, also known as Topher. In response, Christian hip-hop artist Derek Minor stated, “There [are] a lot of Christian songs that people love today that had people that were not Christians write the songs, that helped with the songs or that were not Christians that played guitar on the songs or bass or drums.” He added, “God can use who or what [He] wants to get [His] point across. Even AI.” Ray’s Faithful Soul remains No. 1 on iTunes’ Christian & Gospel albums chart.
