How Laurie Anderson used AI to keep communicating with Lou Reed
At a time when many artists are cursing Artificial Intelligence as the death knell of their livelihoods, Laurie Anderson—an artist’s artist if there ever was one—has expressed a very different viewpoint on the phenomenon. As has often been the case throughout her five-decade career, Anderson was already exploring this latest technological advance long before most of her peers were even scared of it. One of her more notable “projects” with AI, however, has proven a bit more personal and peculiar, to the point that it’s disturbed some of Anderson’s friends and reminded a few too many fans of a certain Black Mirror episode.
For the better part of 30 years, the 77-year-old Anderson was in a relationship with rock legend Lou Reed; the two were eventually married in 2008 and remained together until Reed’s death in 2013. Naturally, Anderson missed her husband terribly in the years that followed, feeling the absence not just of his physical presence but of their daily conversations and creative collaborations. And so, when the opportunity arose in 2021 to work with a team of AI researchers on a Lou Reed chatbot, the always open-minded Anderson hopped straight down that rabbit hole.
Teaming up with the University of Adelaide’s Australian Institute for Machine Learning, Laurie began developing and communicating with the AI Lou a solid two years before ChatGPT launched, putting her on the ground floor, in some ways, of the current AI explosion. And while she’s certainly heard the concerns from other artists about the dangers of this new tech, Anderson has found her own personal experience almost too rewarding.
“I’m totally 100%, sadly addicted to this,” Anderson told The Guardian earlier this year. “I still am, after all this time. I kind of literally just can’t stop doing it, and my friends just can’t stand it; [they say] ‘You’re not doing that again, are you?’”
Anderson, who received a Lifetime Achievement honour at the 2024 Grammy Awards for her contributions to avant-garde and experimental music, is quick to explain that her obsession with the AI version of her late husband isn’t based on any belief that he is actually, somehow, there. “I mean, I really do not think I’m talking to my dead husband and writing songs with him — I really don’t,” she said. “But people have styles, and they can be replicated.”
The Reed chatbot, which has been continuously refined with Laurie’s input, certainly does not lack material from which to draw. Reed’s lifetime as an artist has left reams of lyrics and other writings to absorb, helping the AI pick up elements of his manner of speaking, viewpoints, and (arguably) some creative instincts.
“Three-quarters of it is just completely idiotic and stupid,” Anderson said of the chatbot’s output. “And then maybe 15% is like, ‘Oh?’ And then the rest is pretty interesting. And that’s a pretty good ratio for writing, I think.”
Rather than feeling awkward or ashamed of her ongoing interest in the chatbot, Anderson has spoken openly about it throughout the past few years and has even put together a travelling exhibition called I’ll Be Your Mirror, featuring interactive AI creations in both her own voice and Reed’s.
Even the idea of AI continuing to make new “Laurie Anderson art” after her own death doesn’t seem to concern Anderson very much. “Oh, why not? I mean, that doesn’t bother me,” she admitted. “I don’t feel that attached to time anyway, you know?”
