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Could AI Write This Article?

The 2023 Writers Guild of America Strike Explained

Last week, social media erupted when the Writers Guild of America went on strike. Didn’t hear about it? Well, you will soon.

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Grimes

By: JUSTIN LANE/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

In a recent TikTok, electronic-alternative musician Grimes — who happens to be dating Elon Musk, one of the world's richest men — attempted to pitch artificial intelligence as "the fastest path to communism."

"I have a proposition for the communists. So, typically, most of the communists I know are not big fans of AI But, if you think about it, AI is actually the fastest path to communism," she began. "So, if implemented correctly, AI could actually, theoretically solve for abundance. Like, we could totally get to a situation where nobody has to work. Everybody is provided for with a comparable state of being, comfortable living. AI could automate all the farming, weed out systematic corruption, thereby bringing us as close as possible to genuine equality. So basically, everything everybody loves about communism but without the collective farm — 'cause, let's be real, enforced farming is really not a vibe."

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Kurt Cobain By usdesign1006

An artificial intelligence software called Google Magenta has composed a collection of songs by iconic artists who passed away too soon.

Featuring "new" songs by artists including Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and others who died at the age of 27, the digitally engineered group of songs was released on April 5th as part of an album called Drowned in the Sun – Lost Tapes of the 27 Club.

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Photo by: Matthias Wagner / Unsplash

Reigning weird white women Lana Del Rey, Grimes, and Brit Marling sat down to have a conversation for Interview Magazine, and the result was as futuristic and multidimensional as you might expect.

Grimes, who's in the midst of promoting her forthcoming album Miss_Anthropocene, spoke to Del Rey about everything from ancient religions to artificial intelligence and beyond. Their conversation revolved around artmaking, womanhood, and fame in the Internet age; and like their art, it was characteristically inscrutable. When Del Rey asked if Grimes' work was inspired by personal experience or "the overculture," Grimes launched into a discussion of ancient Egyptian gods and anthropomorphization. "If you think about it, god-making or god-designing just seems so fun. The idea of making the Goddess of Plastic seems so fun to me," she said.

Lana Del Rey and Grimes: Variations on Femininity, Faith, and Critics

Though they're both creative spirits who play with religious symbols and cultural iconography, Grimes and Del Rey are known for representing femininity in different ways (and for dating problematic men). While Del Rey has been linked to classic archetypes of femininity, Grimes' early work seemed to present a futuristic, androgynous image. "On my last record, I was in this gender-neutral mindset," Grimes told Del Rey. "I was an asexual person. F*ck my sexuality. F*ck femininity. F*ck being a girl. I was having this weird reaction to society where I just hated my femaleness. It was like, to be a producer, I felt like I had to be a man."

But Grimes' next album seems like it will lean deeper into feminine and goddess archetypes, while Del Rey's latest, Norman F**king Rockwell, found her comparing herself to great male artists and challenging those who labeled her work as artificial.

Both were full of surprises and were critical of the press, which have always viciously criticized each of them in turn. "In terms of what I'm writing, in my personal life I have to be really, really happy," said Del Rey, contradicting thousands of critics in one fell swoop. They also lamented outrage culture, with its tendency to pluck headlines from interviews and its preference for catchy misinformation at the price of nuance.

Grimes and Brit Marling: On Politics, Artificial Intelligence's Impending World Domination, Capitalism, and Hyperobjects

In the second part of the interview, Grimes spoke to Brit Marling, another futurist whose recently-canceled show, The OA, presented an alternative mode of storytelling and connected technology to environmentalism to the multiverse theory. Together, the two lamented how their work and visions sometimes wind up being incompatible with reality.

Like their work, their conversations spiraled through various dimensions, though one could only imagine what they'd speak about off the record. "We're always negotiating the cost versus the craziness, which is why we always end up editing ourselves," said Marling, hinting at dimensions left unseen.

Both expressed appreciation for the mind-bending nature of each other's work, and Grimes quickly dove back into history and archetypes. "In the medieval times, when literacy was at its lowest, everything got really symbolic, like the cross. Nuance got lost," said Grimes. "I feel like we're going back to a time like that, where everything is symbolic. No one reads past a headline because our attention spans are so short. The same symbols are being fed to people, and they're gathering completely opposite meanings from them, and it's creating chaos."

Marling pulled things towards the politics of the present. "The American flag means one thing to one group of people, and one thing to another," she said. "To one, it's a metaphor for freedom. To another, it's an image of oppression. That duality of symbolism applies to so many things. But we live in an increasingly complex time where it's hard to grasp things in symbols. We're having to deal with all of these hyperobjects. Climate change is a hyperobject that people cannot wrap their minds around, because, among other things, it involves a contemplation of time that is off the scope of the human body. We're at a moment when we need nuanced, layered thinking more than ever, and somehow the moment is being met with a real shrinking away from context or depth."

They also discussed artificial intelligence and its impending world domination, a favorite topic of Grimes'. "There will eventually be a sentient technology that is smart enough and strong enough and has access to take everyone's sh*t, and then can make anyone do whatever it wants," said Grimes. "I might be wrong, and I might be aggrandizing here, but I feel like this might be one of the most important times in history. Especially in the last two years, it feels like we've walked right up to the edge between the old world and the new world. It's like before the pyramids and after the pyramids. We're at a 'pyramids got built' moment. We're going to be digitizing reality and colonizing space simultaneously, which may be two of the craziest things that will have occurred in the history of humanity. It's going to happen while we're alive and while we're young, which is nuts."

Marling has previously written about the need for a better story, one that unifies the scattered threads of our era and critiques hero worship, but the idea that artificial intelligence might write this story is definitely a threat to all of this. She replied, "If the objective of art has often been to be a lighthouse in the dark, to say, 'Hey, come this way,' or to expose fraudulent things for what they actually are, what does it mean if something other than human beings is authoring that force of rebellion?" A valid point—though on the other hand, what if artificial intelligence could improve upon some of the flaws that define the human condition, such as our general inability to understand what asexuality actually is?

Grimes returned to a topic she'd addressed with Del Rey. "We're always looking for our maker: 'Who is our god? Who created us?' What's interesting is, for AI, we are their god," she said. "That will be the first intelligent being that knows its creator, and knows everything about us."

Marling proposed that maybe AI isn't our worst fear—maybe something else is already controlling us. "Capitalism, even if there wasn't corruption, is a model that doesn't work for most people, because its only goal is the increase of profit, which means that there's somebody at the top of the pyramid and most people at the bottom who get paid less than their work is worth for profit to be extracted," she said. "I think part of the reason there's been so much climate change denial is that if you acknowledge that this economic system leads to ecological ruin, you have to acknowledge in the same breath that it's broken. Right now, we put value in growth, and everything is just endless, ridiculous growth, even though we're on a finite planet with dwindling resources and more people every day. Let's say, just for a moment, you put the value on caregiving."

"I was just thinking the other day how much I didn't appreciate my mom growing up," said Grimes. "I remember thinking, 'Why did you wake me up for school? This b*tch. F*ck.'"

There's only one conclusion to be drawn here. Lana Del Rey, Grimes, and Brit Marling should collaborate on a visual concept album with an interactive artificial intelligence component that crafts a new story outside the bounds of capitalism and neoliberalism and that motivates everyone to fight climate change, promote ethics in Silicon Valley, and call their mom.

MUSIC

6 New Songs You Should Hear This Week: The Times, They Are a-Changing

Featuring tracks from Suki Waterhouse, Jimi Somewhere, Shura, and more.

This week's new indie music selections oscillate between nostalgia and a resolute desire to embrace the present and future. While Jimi Somewhere, Suki Waterhouse and Rae Isla miss bygone times, Tierra Whack is done with bullshit and ready to power into her strength, and Holly Herndon is basically already living in the matrix.

Each of these songs grapples with the reality of change in a completely different way—but ultimately, each is guaranteed to remind you that you're not alone in feeling a lot of things about it.

1. Jimi Somewhere — "I Shot My Dog / 1st Place"

Jimi Somewhere's newest release is a harmony-laden, sun-drenched tune in the vein of Kevin Abstract and Roy Blair. It's an angsty and expansive track that seems meant for lying on the floor of your mom's basement, staring at the vomit stain from one of your high school parties, questioning everything and missing your childhood dog. But it also has enough energy to propel you off that floor, out onto the highway and into a dramatic running scene that ends with you kneeling down in a wheat field and suddenly deciding to change your life, dedicating yourself to love rather than self-pity. "I Shot My Dog" is a mixed bag of emotions, and it's a promising taste of the Norwegian up-and-comer's first EP.

2. Suki Waterhouse — Good Looking

Suki Waterhouse - Good Looking (Official Video)www.youtube.com

The English singer returns with an almost luxuriously vapid single that sounds like a ripoff of a Twin Peaks trance-ballad. But the fluorescent guitar and opulently dramatic ending give the song a trippy, relaxing warmth, making it feel kind of like a sonic hot spring. It's a saccharine, glistening tribute to superficiality, and it feels kind of like wandering through Sephora, fully aware that you're being sold exorbitantly expensive products that will benefit you in absolutely no way—but not letting that stop you from lingering over the latest colorstay vegan moisturizing face-rejuvenating turmeric-infused eyeshadow palate, $75. Fortunately, listening to "Good Looking" is free and will give you the same rush of bittersweet joy you would receive from any overpriced cosmetics.

3. Rae Isla — "American Paradise"

Rae Isla - American Paradise (Official Audio)www.youtube.com

As long as humans have existed, we've dreamed of paradises—a certain garden, nirvana, and heaven are only a few of the perfect worlds we've imagined and clung to in times of duress. In "American Paradise," Rae Isla pays her tribute to a haven of her own—our ever-idealized California dream. Vaguely reminiscent of old Irish folk songs, full of seasonal imagery and lit with a spacy kind of innocence, this nostalgic ballad is ultimately about fear of change. "Oh this country, so divided with its science and faith. Give me freedom in the valley / that is where I'll find my place," she sings. "California, do you love me?" It's unclear whether she's singing to California the state, a lover, some lost sense of happiness and peace, or a combination of all three, but regardless, "American Paradise" is about the all-too-human longing for escape.

4. Shura, "BKLYNLDN"

Shura - BKLYNLDNwww.youtube.com

Since the release of her debut album Nothing's Real in 2016, British songwriter and producer Shura has been quiet, but her new single "BKLYNLDN" breaks the silence with an intoxicating beat and expertly delicate orchestrations. Shura moved from London to Brooklyn to be with her girlfriend, and the song reflects the fear and excitement that defines major life changes. "We could take the subway to the beach where there's a breeze, cause we're in America," she sings, making it clear that she is, indeed, new to Brooklyn. Just wait, Shura, the bedbugs will find you. But for anyone who's ever made a long-term move or sacrifice in pursuit of love, this song will resonate—and plus the video is a sultry tribute to queer love, sure to engage the attention of everyone who's ever been attracted to a woman, or felt the sting of a difficult romance.

5. Holly Herndon, "Eternal"

Holly Herndon - Eternal (Official Video)www.youtube.com

This erratic work of electronica is a collaboration between Herndon and an A.I. she created called "Spawn." Herndon, a longtime computer musician, has thought long and hard about the implications of making music with an inhuman partner. "I don't want to live in a world in which humans are automated off stage," she said in a statement. "I want an A.I. to be raised to appreciate and interact with that beauty." While these are important discussions to be exploring, "Eternal" sounds a little bit too synthetic to feel like an actual expression of emotion or a cohesive composition. It's a little too caught up in its lofty ideals, a little too close to the uncanny valley—but maybe that's the point.

6. Tierra Whack — "Wasteland"

Tierra Whack – Wasteland (Audio)www.youtube.com

#WhackHistoryMonth just keeps getting better and better. On "Wasteland," the rising star laces aggressive lyrics over a mellow beat and churchy organ motif. She shows off her singing voice alongside effortless bars as the tune sways and swells at just the right times, echoing sentiments shared by any woman who has simply been Done with a man's shit. True to her innovative release style, Whack has been releasing one new song each week this month as a prelude to her upcoming 2019 LP.


Eden Arielle Gordon is a writer and musician from New York City. Follow her on Twitter @edenarielmusic.


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Is Artificial Intelligence Saving or Destroying Music?

AI can now write and record songs incredibly well. But is there something about music that is distinctly human, something that an AI cannot replicate?

What makes great music great? Is it technical mastery, emotional payoff, or some other inexplicable x factor, something that could never be replicated by an algorithm?

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