In The Style of Nick Cave

Australian singer, songwriter, poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional actor, Nick Cave (left) has taken to his Q&A website, The Red Hand Files, to respond to a fan (Mike) who used ChatGPT to write a song "in the style of Nick Cave". 

Here’s what he said, in part: 

“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”. 

And he closed his response with this brilliance: 

“…thanks for the song, but with all the love and respect in the world, this song is bullshit, 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”. 

My advice: Go listen to some real Nick Cave, who can never be replaced by AI.

 

  

  

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Rediscovering Nick Cave after so many years – and still loving his music!