Will AIs Ever Get the Blues?

Just an observation about an observation of Stephen Wolfram 's about ChatGPT "it’s text that basically reads like it was written by a human. In the past we might have thought that human language was somehow a uniquely human thing to produce. But now we’ve got an AI doing it. So what’s left for us humans?" More from Wolfram here: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/03/will-ais-take-all-our-jobs-and-end-human-history-or-not-well-its-complicated/

WOW! That was quick. What's left for us, indeed?

Wolfram introduces this observation in the context of asking whether ChatGPT and its AI children are going to eat all of our jobs.

But I want to hold up on a simple element of the thinking that is currently pervading conversations about AI replacing human activity of all kinds. People often talk as if humans are completely isolated from one another. That we accomplish our work functionally independent of others, and for that matter, that all that we do is neatly analogous to well-defined problem solving or tightly specified finite tasks.

One of the areas in which some expect AI to very quickly be able to accomplish human level competence at is writing music. And in one way, we can easily imagine that if ChatGPT can write a competent essay from a simple prompt, then perhaps a pop song isn't so far off. And I don't doubt that AI will soon, if it doesn't already, offer up examples of songs that sound like humans produced them.

Is that music?

Singer/songwriter Nick Cave wrote a response to one of the many folks who post questions on his blog, in this case, someone wondering what he thought of a song ChatGPT spat out in response to a prompt about a song written in the style of Nick Cave. Nick was not impressed.

"I do not feel the same enthusiasm around this technology. I understand that ChatGPT is in its infancy but perhaps that is the emerging horror of AI – that it will forever be in its infancy, as it will always have further to go, and the direction is always forward, always faster." More of Nick's thoughts here https://www.theredhandfiles.com/chat-gpt-what-do-you-think/

Yesterday, I listened to one of the latest episodes of Song Exploder. https://songexploder.net/new-order The podcast focuses on how musicians make their songs, artistically, technically, even technologically. This episode was focused on the New Order song, Blue Monday. Originally released in March of 1983, the song sent shockwaves through the club music scene. I was a club DJ at the time, and though I was already a New Order fan, Blue Monday was a revelation.

One of the most amazing mixes I ever made was cutting Blue Monday into Patrice Rushen's Forget Me Nots. There's no way it should have worked. Mashing up the Manchester sound and the Motown-inspired groove of Freddie Washington's bassline felt risky, but right somehow. Now that I've listed to the members of New Order talk about making Blue Monday I understand why. They were making a disco track.

I made something new that night at The Beat, and I couldn't have done it if I wasn't tuned in to the different cultures of music from which Rushen and New Order each emerged. In the 80s those cultures met out on the dancefloor. We were shakin' our moneymakers to something new.

Right now, too many are emphasizing how AI will eclipse us, leave us behind. But maybe it wants to play. Maybe it want's to dance. If even cowgirls can get the blues, maybe AIs can, too.