So far, my feeling about AI is that, beyond its usefulness as a search engine, it’s only helpful for the last one percent of most creative work.
Let’s say you’ve written your lyrics (or article, or speech etc.). All the ideas, research, content, and phrasing come from your own brain. Then, you feed it into an AI tool of your choice, and it corrects your grammar or highlights awkward logic and inconsistencies.
AI is amazing at this final stage. It can catch and polish things like only a robot can.
But in my opinion (so far), the “artificial” nature of its “intelligence” becomes very evident when trying to create art.
A little experiment to demonstrate
I once wrote a song called Utopia that ended up on my last album Healer. You can listen to it here:
I started the song while living in southern China, in a factory town called Humen. Most of the inhabitants were migrant factory workers. It was an atmospheric place with a lot of history, but the pollution from the surrounding factories was chronic, and the workers didn’t look happy to me. This inspired the feel of the song and the lyrics.
I wanted to paint a picture of people trying to— or pretending to—be happy (“this is our Utopia“) while living in a pretty soul-destroying environment.
The final lyrics took a long time to write and included references to this art exhibition: Whose Utopia?. I also mention a burning motorcycle I saw in the middle of an intersection during a morning run. The coda at the end references laughing gas canisters strewn across a park in an affluent part of Manchester, where I stayed during COVID.
Here are the full lyrics:
Utopia
Oh what a pretty skyline
Fog and pollution
People lining up for execution
Silent ballerina
Dances through a factory
Lighting up the workers and machinery
This is our Utopia
This is our Utopia
Don’t shatter the illusion
This ignorance is opium
Oh how can the morning
Sky look suicidal
High above a burning motorcycle
And lonely out-of-towners
Carrion for vultures
Biting on the hand that never feeds us
This is our Utopia
This is our Utopia
Don’t shatter the illusion
‘Cause this ignorance is opium
Don’t shatter the illusion
‘Cause this ignorance is opium
There’s laughing gas
On the summer grass
This is our Utopia
The question is: Could AI have written these lyrics or something that I consider of similar quality?
Let’s see:
Here’s the result:
Utopia (Chat GPT version)
Neon hum on the factory floor,
midnight shifts and metal doors.
Machines sing their static tune,
under an artificial moon.
And the faces glow in flickering light,
dreams wrapped up in cellophane tight.
Is this paradise? Is this a dream?
Or just a town caught in the machine?
Utopia—painted in smoke and steel,
we laugh like ghosts so the world won’t feel.
We chase the sun that never sets,
inside a dream we can’t forget.
Plastic gardens, concrete skies,
we build the world with tired eyes.
One more stitch, one more spark,
one more light against the dark.
And the radio plays a hollow tune,
echoes bounce in an empty room.
Is this paradise? Is this a dream?
Or just a town caught in the machine?
Utopia—painted in smoke and steel,
we laugh like ghosts so the world won’t feel.
We chase the sun that never sets,
inside a dream we can’t forget.
Outside the walls, the stars still burn,
but we’re too tired to lift our heads and turn.
So we dance in circuits, loop and rewind,
finding joy in the factory grind.
Neon hum on the factory floor,
midnight shifts and metal doors.
Maybe someday we’ll break free,
or maybe this is all we need.
Well, they aren’t exactly terrible.
But of course, it’s the melding of the lyrics with the melody and chords that makes the song.
I played with Utopia’s chords—particularly the chorus—for years before I got it right.
But let’s see what AI comes up with. This is the version created solely with AI using Suno.com. It uses the Chat GPT lyrics above:
And this is the version also with Suno.com that uses my lyrics:
I think the results speak for themselves, but that’s just my opinion.
Finally, what about album artwork?
This song was originally going to be on my previous album, Underground Man. My artist friend Johnnie created the album artwork.
The “prompt” I gave him was:
A psychedelic scene based on the Shanghai skyline, with pollution oozing into the river in unusual colours.
And this is what he sent me:
Which became this:
But what will AI come up with?
This time let’s ask Copilot for help using the same prompt:
It’s pretty cool. But very AI.
So what do you think? Should I have used AI to create my music and artwork?
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