AI lyricism: José González co-wrote song with ChatGPT on new album
In an exclusive interview with Far Out, Swedish singer-songwriter José González revealed that he collaborated with AI chatbot ChatGPT to come up with the lyrics for the closing song on his new album.
In late March, González released his fifth full-length studio album, Against The Dying Of The Light. The lead single, ‘Perfect Storm’, tackled the wider psycholigcal questions the rise in AI usage has stirred up.
Earlier this week, the musician also released an accompanying music video for the single, which was “a product of human creativity, enabled by Aritifical Intelligence” and used an entirely “synthetic cast” who appear hyper-realistic in their melancholy despite being digital creations.
In an interview with Far Out, González explained his approach to AI, and said that he is “curious about this new technology”.
He went on to share that the closing song on Against The Dying Of The Light, ‘Joy (Can’t Help But Sing)’ was written with his “assistant”, the AI platform used by 900 million people globally.
González collaborated with two different models of Chat GPT to innovate within specific lyrical parameters, and saw a clear difference in the success of the two models.
He told Chat GPT that “the first verse should be about this, the second should be about this… So [version] 4.5 was actually way better than 4.0. All of a sudden it could actually rhyme and had the right amount of syllables.”
However, González was still involved in the process to a granular level; “I still had to prompt for a very long time and did a lot of editing,” he reassured.
The lyrics to the song paint a mystical, timeless and evocative atmosphere, as an undisclosed “we” admits to being endlessly moved to musical expression: “The dawn hasn’t changed, a thousand lights dissolve the gray. As we cognify everything, we’re still primates, who can’t help but sing,” González sings.
Watch his new AI-made music video below.
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