Nick Cave and the danger of Chat GPT

[Valknut3301]

A video was recently released by the Youtube channel After Skool wherein Stephan Fry reads a letter written by Australian songwriter Nick Cave. Nick wrote said letter in reply to a fan's inquiry regarding the use of A.I. in songwriting.

Here is a link to that video:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_Pf4GmQY8Ow

And here is a link to the original text of Nick Cave's letter, from his website:

https://www.theredhandfiles.com/chat...er-and-easier/

I agree with Mr. Cave's sentiments completely. This being the case, I wanted to find the text of the letter and save it for future reading, but I discovered something fairly disturbing in doing so.

I did a search for the letter using Startpage, found numerous articles talking about the video linked above, along with text of the 'letter', but the text is NOT what Stephan Fry read, nor is it what is written on Nick Cave's website. Quite the opposite.

Here is the text which is being put forward as having been written by Nick Cave:

"Dear Mark,

Since its launch in November last year many people, most buzzing with a kind of algorithmic awe, have sent me songs ‘in the style of Nick Cave’ created by ChatGPT. There have been dozens of them. Suffice to say, I do not feel the same enthusiasm around this technology. I understand that ChatGPT is in its infancy but perhaps that is the emerging horror of AI – that it will forever be in its infancy, as it will always have further to go, and the direction is always forward, always faster. It can never be rolled back, or slowed down, as it moves us toward a utopian future, maybe, or our total destruction. Who can possibly say which? Judging by this song ‘in the style of Nick Cave’ though, it doesn’t look good, Mark. The apocalypse is well on its way. This song sucks.
What ChatGPT is, in this instance, is replication as travesty. ChatGPT may be able to write a speech or an essay or a sermon or an obituary but it cannot create a genuine song. It could perhaps in time create a song that is, on the surface, indistinguishable from an original, but it will always be a replication, a kind of burlesque.

Songs arise out of suffering, by which I mean they are predicated upon the complex, internal human struggle of creation and, well, as far as I know, algorithms don’t feel. Data doesn’t suffer. ChatGPT has no inner being, it has been nowhere, it has endured nothing, it has not had the audacity to reach beyond its limitations, and hence it doesn’t have the capacity for a shared transcendent experience, as it has no limitations from which to transcend. ChatGPT’s melancholy role is that it is destined to imitate and can never have an authentic human experience, no matter how devalued and inconsequential the human experience may in time become.

What makes a great song great is not its close resemblance to a recognizable work. Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite. It is an act of self-murder that destroys all one has strived to produce in the past. It is those dangerous, heart-stopping departures that catapult the artist beyond the limits of what he or she recognises as their known self. This is part of the authentic creative struggle that precedes the invention of a unique lyric of actual value; it is the breathless confrontation with one’s vulnerability, one’s perilousness, one’s smallness, pitted against a sense of sudden shocking discovery; it is the redemptive artistic act that stirs the heart of the listener, where the listener recognizes in the inner workings of the song their own blood, their own struggle, their own suffering. This is what we humble humans can offer, that AI can only mimic, the transcendent journey of the artist that forever grapples with his or her own shortcomings. This is where human genius resides, deeply embedded within, yet reaching beyond, those limitations.

It may sound like I’m taking all this a little too personally, but I’m a songwriter who is engaged, at this very moment, in the process of songwriting. It’s a blood and guts business, here at my desk, that requires something of me to initiate the new and fresh idea. It requires my humanness. What that new idea is, I don’t know, but it is out there somewhere, searching for me. In time, we will find each other.

Mark, thanks for the song, but with all the love and respect in the world, this song is bull****, a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human, and, well, I don’t much like it — although, hang on!, rereading it, there is a line in there that speaks to me —
‘I’ve got the fire of hell in my eyes’
— says the song ‘in the style of Nick Cave’, and that’s kind of true. I have got the fire of hell in my eyes – and it’s ChatGPT.

Love, Nick"

There are several points of difference between this false letter and what Nick Cave actually wrote.

1: It expresses the sentiment that A.I. is an inevitable evil which, whether we like it or not, is beyond our ability to stop.

2: That there are a great number of people using it already and, again, we've gone beyond the point of no return.

3: It expresses the idea that A.I. is an emotionless machine, unable to do anything but simulate human creativity, yet it can still appear creative, even to Nick Cave.

4: It completely omits any mention of the Bible, Genesis, the creation or creative act therein, and of spiritual matters whatsoever.

5: It retains much of the color of Nick Cave's letter but waters the entire thing down, softening the message and confusing the whole point.

So, given all of this, I wonder if this false letter was in fact written by A.I. itself, perhaps at the behest of a real human being, to confuse and misdirect people from Nick Cave's actual message. Regardless, it seems a clear attempt to obfuscate and confuse the whole issue, all to the benefit of Chat GPT and, indeed, A.I. itself.

Or maybe the entire thing was created by A.I. and Nick Cave never said anything about it at all. What do you think?

[ExomatrixTV]

• See also the latest updates of this Project Avalon Forum Thread!

cheers,
John 🦜🦋🌳

[Raskolnikov]

Just wanted to say thanks for posting Valknut3301. Always loved Nick Cave and the AI thing really adds credence to his words...

[John Hilton]

A video was recently released by the Youtube channel After Skool wherein Stephan Fry reads a letter written by Australian songwriter Nick Cave.

I've never heard of Nick Cave but I do know of Stephen Fry and he'd be mortified to know that you spelt his name "Stephan"!

Stephen Fry, by the way, has just this week ventured onto Substack: https://stephenfry.substack.com/p/40-years-on