There is great excitement about recent applications of artificial intelligence (AI), increasingly capable of interacting with real people and simulating lifelike conversations. The most famous app in this sense is definitely ChatGPTat the center of a real cult phenomenon on the web, which however is not liked at all by Nick Cave, iconic Australian singer-songwriter. According to the historic singer of The Bad Seeds “l‘AI can’t write songs“.
The criticism came after several fans sent Nick Cave lyrics created by ChatGPT. Users had asked the AI to “write a Nick Cave-style song”. Having received the lyrics, the singer-songwriter’s reaction was lapidary: “With all love and respect, but this is a giant b*tch”wrote Nick Cave on his blog The Red Hand Files.
The song written by ChatGPT
We remind you that ChatGPT uses a complex algorithm to draw on the information present on the web and return probable results to user requests. A lyric part of the song written by the Nick Cave-style AI reads:
In the depths of the night, I hear a call
A voice that echoes, through the hall
It’s a siren’s song, that pulls me in
Takes me to a place, where I can’t begin
I am the sinner, I am the saint
I am the darkness, I am the light
I am the hunter, I am the prey
I am the devil, I am the savior
Nick Cave’s answer: “ChatGPT is unable to write songs”
In a long but compelling response posted on his blog, Nick Cave wrote:
“Since its launch in November last year, many people, mostly excited and driven by some kind of algorithmic fanaticism, have been sending me ‘Nick Cave-style’ songs created by ChatGPT. I got about a dozen. Suffice it to say that I don’t feel the same enthusiasm for this technology. I understand ChatGPT is in its infancy, but this is all horrendous.
The songs are born from suffering, from the complex struggle within man that takes the form of the creative process. Well, as far as I know, algorithms prove none of this. The data does not suffer. ChatGPT has no inner being struggling to get out. He hasn’t been anywhere, he hasn’t experienced anything, he hasn’t had the audacity to go beyond his limits, because he has no limits. Thus it has no shared experience from which to transcend.
ChatGPT is intended to mimic. He can never have an authentic human experience, no matter how devalued and irrelevant human experience may become in the future.
Finally Nick Cave turned to Mark, one of the fans who sent him the texts created by the algorithm:
“Mark, thanks for the song, but with all the love and respect in the world, this is a big bullsh*t, a grotesque mockery of what it means to be human, and, well, I don’t really like it. Although, wait, rereading it now there’s a line I like. She says ‘I have hell fire in my eyes’, and it’s quite true. I have hellfire in my eyes: that fire is ChatGPT. “
Meanwhile another artificial intelligence called Character.AI allows users to simulate absolutely realistic chats with real life characters. For example, you can ask John Lennon an opinion on contemporary music or even ask him what he thinks about it Mark Chapman.
ChatGPT is currently at the center of a large controversy regarding the topic of cybersecurity. Several inexperienced hackers have been able to create advanced malware by taking advantage of AI cues.