A.I. AND HEART & SOUL
There have been some interesting discussions this week on LinkedIn and elsewhere about emerging generative AI music software. I have had thought-provoking exchanges with the likes of Sam Barcroft and Dr Alex Connock. Sam wrote “nobody wants to watch or read derivative content built by robots” and “AI music is derivative and lacks that special something that truly original content sparks inside”. Reflecting on music is helpful because it just has the audio dimension, simpler than the audio-visual nature of my chosen medium of film/video.
Alex flagged up Udio music-generating AI and said: “I’m not saying it’s desirable to have our creativity done by AI; just that it’s perhaps a little naive to think it won’t happen!”
I’ve been reflecting on music and what role heart, soul, humanity and authenticity play in its creation. If we break it down, AI can generate the tunes pretty efficiently, especially at the functional end of the spectrum such as Electronic Dance Music, ambient music like in gyms and malls, and TV library music (that’s a moribund business if ever there was one). EDM is arguably already maths (apologies to its fans out there).
The words can be generated fairly well given the right training material. Even highly emotive songs. If you gave an AI, say, all of John Martyn’s material, it could probably come up with a decent simulacrum which all but hardcore followers would be hard-pushed to distinguish from the real thing.
“The army and the navy they never will agreeTill all the men and all the boysAre gone from our country“
It’s not really poetry. It’s quite simple.
Then there’s the third component – the voice. Feed all of John Martyn into the machine and even though his voice is pretty distinctive, it can already be effectively reproduced. Which is, indeed, useful from one perspective as he’s gone to the Great Gig in the sky.
But the final component – how the artist sings/performs the lyrics – is arguably where the magic is, the heart & soul. Listen to the first minute of the song above, ‘Don’t You Go‘. It’s illuminating what the poster has written: “I could try and explain how wonderful John Martyn’s music is, but my words could never do his art justice.” How Martyn delivers the simple tune and the simple lyrics I would contend is beyond the abilities of AI, certainly AI without consciousness. AI has no experiences, never lost a child, never had its heart broken, never felt pain, fear or anything else, and therefore can never communicate real feeling, only a copy of feelings. Humans have highly tuned abilities to detect genuine emotion and empathise with it. So, for now at least, there is some corner of the music field that is forever human – a small space where AI can’t really go. But it is a very small space.
Heart & soul do play a vital role in the best of art and culture but in music at least the field is wide open for AI. It is important and instructive that we keep a close eye and ear on where the heart & soul are, and never forget why they matter.
Simple Pleasures part 4 
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