Weird AI

A few weeks ago, a question came to me. Could AI take Weird Al’s job? (These are the type of existential questions I often ponder.)

For the uninitiated, “Weird Al” Yankovic has been doing parody versions of pop songs since 1976. He is best known for taking recent hit songs and re-performing them with new lyrics (the best ones are about food). The New York Times Magazine summed up his staying power well in a 2020 feature.?“National economies collapse; species go extinct; political movements rise and fizzle. But — somehow, for some reason — Weird Al keeps rocking.” And he even has a recently released biopic on Roku starring Harry Potter/Daniel Radcliffe as a fictionalized version of Al.

I tried prompting GPT-3 to make a parody song in Weird Al’s style. In short, it stunk. It wasn’t funny. It didn’t rhyme. The “songs” didn’t make sense. If an AI doesn’t do what you want, it may be because it hasn’t been “properly trained.” So I trained it.

I downloaded the lyrics to every Weird Al parody song and the lyrics for every song he made fun of (about 70 of these pairs in total). I presented GPT-3 with an original song’s lyrics and a new topic (bologna, Star Wars, etc.), and then showed it the actual, Weird Al version. Knowing this is the pattern I want to create, the model learns how to take an input (a source song) and create an output I desire. This is known as Fine Tuning a model. It takes some time, and the formatting is a bit of a pain in the butt… but it seemed to be moving in the right direction.

Then on Monday, OpenAI released a new model for GPT-3 called davinci-3. (I had been doing all the work above on the previous davinci-2 model.) Among other features, it was reportedly able to generate longer content and be able to rhyme. I asked the new model to “give me a recipe for Hungarian goulash, but make it rhyme.” Here’s what it returned:

Instructions:

In a large pot, heat up some oil

Brown the beef, add some onions and garlic, let them sweat and toil

Add paprika, caraway, and pepper and let it simmer

Then add tomato paste, beef broth, and let it simmer

Let it cook for an hour or so and let the flavors combine

Then stir in the sour cream, and let it all simmer a final time

Serve it with some crusty bread and a nice glass of wine

Enjoy your Hungarian goulash and its delicious rhyme!

Not bad.

I figured I’d give the Weird Al thing a try with this new model. Given that it is the Holiday season, I asked the new GPT-3 model to give me a version of Sia’s Candy Cane Lane but make the lyrics about “overcooked Christmas cookies.” It gave me this (edited down for length):

Title: Burnt Biscuit Lane

Take a trip down Burnt Biscuit Lane with me

It's the worst thing I swear you'll ever see

It's a mess, so get dressed, I'll impress

You with the smell of burnt cookies

Take a trip down Burnt Biscuit Lane with me

It's so tragic, let's go there in your dreams

It's a mess, so get dressed, I'll impress

You with the fumes in all the kitchens

Black and yellow and brown and grey

Charcoal and ashen and beige

Christmas is ruined for thee

Christmas is ruined for thee

Honestly, I was amazed by this result. “Black and yellow and brown and grey, Charcoal and ashen and beige, Christmas is ruined for thee.” That is a damn good parody line that I could practically hear Sia singing.

I tried again. Instead of a good song, I wanted to see what it would do with a piece I particularly loathe: Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney. I told GPT-3 I hated the song (although I feel that GPT-3 already knew that about me), and here’s what it gave me:

Title:??Awful Christmastime

[Verse 1]

The mood is wrong

The spirit's low

This song is so

Unwanted and slow

[Chorus]

Simply having an awful Christmastime

Simply having an awful Christmastime

[Verse 2]

The synths are cringy

The beats gone flat

Paul must be singin'

In a trash bag

[Chorus]

Simply having an awful Christmastime

Simply having an awful Christmastime

It is low hanging fruit to switch the title from “wonderful” to “awful” but that second verse with “The synths are cringy, the beats gone flat, Paul must be singin', In a trash bag.” That is beautiful; even if I don’t know what it means to be “singin’ in a trash bag.” Is that GPT-3 somehow threatening Paul? But I digress.

I believe this is a glimpse of our future. Imagine now that, in addition to lyrics, the AI could create the music. If you ever wanted a different version of a song you love, it is at your fingertips. Your kids favorite songs could be about them and their friends/activities. And every time I hear a version of Wonderful Christmastime I won’t turn it off because the lyrics are actually trolling the original. (And in the future, Paul still gets a royalty check each time because surely Sir Paul McCartney needs the money.

Net/net, this davinci-3 update to GPT-3 is extremely impressive. This is the reality of Generative AI these days: if the tool doesn’t do what you want it to do today, wait a few weeks, and it will.