Who Is That Band?

Who's the artist? Who's the singer?

I get these questions a lot.

Before I answer, let me tell you a story.

There’s a song by Tori Amos that never fails to bring tears to my eyes. It’s called Winter.

Tori Amos is talented in so many ways: As a songwriter; as a pianist; as a singer; as a performer.

Listen to the lyrics of Winter. It is so touching from both the girl and the father’s point of view. I just watched it for the countless time and again, it moved me to tears.

I have been working with artificial intelligence in one for or another for most of my career. For the past two and a half/three years, I’ve been focused on the generative AI most of you will recognize as ChatGPT.

A couple of years ago, I was discussing with someone the notion of creativity in the context of generative AI and I bought up this song.

“AI can’t make me feel how that song makes me feel,” I said.

I was wrong.

For the past year I’ve been experimenting with using AI tools to create songs and I have been blown away at the capabilities.

The songs I’ve created using these tools have moved listeners to laughter, tears, have inspired and motivated them.

Now, I’m a musician myself–I play guitar and sing–and I’ve written plenty of lyrics in my day, so I’ll take a lot of the credit for the lyrics. 😀

The thing is, but for this technology, I would not be creating protest songs. I have a day job. I have other things to do. But because I don’t have to assemble a bunch of musicians and pay for recording studio time and a producer, I can do this.

It’s a way for me to express my concern, my outrage, my frustration, my sadness at what is happening to our country.

The concept for the songs are mine and I use my AI skills and music knowledge to guide the AI to execute my vision.

Which is a long way of answering your questions about who is that band? Who is the artist? Who is the singer?

It’s I and AI.