I'm not surprised that Nick Cave isn't a fan of AI songwriting in the same way I'm not surprised New York City rats aren't a fan of trash pickup day. Sometimes you just know that two things are not going to mesh well, and that's okay. But Cave's level of disgust with it was still pretty striking.
A few days ago, acclaimed singer-songwriter and notorious dramatic Nick Cave wrote a blog post where he shared song lyrics a fan had sent him after prompting ChatGPT to write a song "in the style of Nick Cave." Suffice it to say Cave was not a fan of the song, calling it "a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human" and the technology in use "replication as travesty." His full blog post is worth a read, as Nick Cave outlines his perspective in far more eloquent language than I likely will in summarizing it. But his basic argument is that true, emotionally impactful music stems from human suffering, and since robots never suffer, they cannot make music that sits at the same emotional frequency as human songwriters. I largely agree with this and have expressed similar sentiments in my own writing before, as I too am still waiting for AI to cross the line from making art to making thoughtful art, and it's not clear that line will be crossed anytime soon. And let's face it: the song the fan sent had the emotional depth of a sixth grade boy in his emo phase.
But both Cave's piece and my own previous writing are based on the assumption that there is something singularly brilliant about the human brain that makes it the only technology capable of producing genuinely original thought. But what if that's a myth? More specifically, what if the human brain isn't actual capable of producing genuinely original thought either? At the end of the day, all songwriters are products of their record collection and all architects products of their LEGO sets. What if we get down the road and realize all our creativity as humans has actually just been derivative thought in disguise? That original ideas are just a complex web of our own inspirations getting pulled together in a new way? And isn't that exactly what ChatGPT is at the end of the day? And if that's true, then what's stopping it from someday creating equally as compelling art as humans? Perhaps the only difference between humans and AI is our training data is our memories, not a database.
I don't actually believe this. I, like Nick Cave, still think there is something inherent in the experience of being human that gives us the ability to create genuinely unique and thoughtful art without needing the crutch of past influences. But it's a belief. And even if AI may never reach the point where it's conjuring unique art on its own accord, I don't think we've proven yet that it won't someday be able to draw from enough digital influences that whatever it creates passes as genuinely unique art.
In other words, someday ChatGPT may write a Nick Cave song the same way Nick Cave writes a Nick Cave song: on the back of his favorite authors and musicians.
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