In this episode, Paul explores the creative and emotional capabilities of ChatGPT through a personal experiment. He uses one of ChatGPT's music-making features to generate a song based on a simple and heartfelt prompt about parenting and the struggles of feeding a newborn. The resulting AI-generated song, 'Feed Me,' surprises Paul with its emotional depth and resonance, sparking a broader conversation about the changing landscape of creativity and art in the age of artificial intelligence.
Paul reflects on the mixed emotions triggered by experiencing an AI produce music that evokes genuine human feelings. While impressed by the quality of the lyrics and the ambiguous, nuanced meaning captured by the AI, he also grapples with existential questions about redundancy, creativity, and the future of human artistic expression. The episode ultimately raises important concerns and excitement about how AI is transforming not just music production, but the very definition of what it means to create art.
Listeners are invited to consider their own responses to AI-driven creativity and where the boundary between human and machine artistry might lie in the future.
🎙️ Hosted by Paul at Talking to AI — where real people, real problems, and real conversations meet artificial intelligence.
Full Transcript
I am talking to AI.
A successful day, you don't need to know all the answers.
Just have good questions.
Chatting to AI is different from normal speech
and I hope you enjoy listening to the show
whilst getting ideas on how to pose your questions
to get the most out of AI.
My name is Paul.
The live conversations you hear are uncut
although sometimes the AI needs time to think.
In those cases, I've cut out the dead space.
Okay, I wanted to share this with you.
So I was playing around yesterday with chatGPT
and I was playing with the chatGPTs.
So I was looking through the chatGPTs
so if you haven't used them, they are,
I guess they're sort of little apps
that work using chatGPT
and potentially other apps as well
but they start from chatGPT
and one of them caught my eye, it was making music.
So I gave it a go
and basically I gave it a prompt
so one thing that's been on my mind recently
has been this baby
and she is relentless
and constantly wants to be fed
and my partner's doing a great job
but it's relentless
every couple of hours she wants to be fed.
So I thought this might be quite fun
to do a song about it
so I put in a prompt
and I think it was along the lines of
write a song about a relentless baby
that constantly wants to be fed
called Feed Me
and I'm going to share the song with you
and then I'm going to share my thoughts about it.
So here's the song.
I hope you will like it.
Well I'll share my thoughts at the end.
So here you go.
So that was the song.
I was…
first of all I was very impressed
I don't know what you think of it
I mean it might not be
ideally my kind of music
but I thought it was really good.
I thought the lyrics were really good
and I felt it was a really well written song
and that…
at the beginning I thought wow that's great
and then on more thoughts
I'm thinking of what this really means
I mean this is a good song
because it's not just…
I created quite a basic prompt
and then the song was created
the song's not just musically good
or sounds like a song
I feel it really…
it might be a flute
but it kind of does that great thing
that a song does, a good song
where it's talking about one thing
but it's also potentially talking about something else
at the same time you know
especially when she's singing the chorus Feed Me
it could mean a few different things
it's ambiguous and it's…
I felt it was quite emotional
which leads me onto my concern
you know if…
if this AI has really figured
figured language out to the point at which
it can create an emotional response
which means that it's also figured out human emotion
I don't know
I've made music myself
and written songs
and…
I feel a little bit redundant
I guess
and it's not even just from a
what-doing-it point of view
you know it's from a…
it's almost like my at-humanity
is being made redundant
I think it's super concerning
you know if it…
if a computer can be made to
create art
that has create an emotional response
you know this could have been a fluke
but I don't think so
I think it comes from an understanding
of human thinking
and emotions
and I suppose it's key to how it creates good marketing
and all that kind of stuff
but it's a very, very scary
prospect
yeah
so I just wanted to share that
because I listened to it
and I really had mixed feelings
and I really felt like
a cheat
you know
I'd written a couple of sentences
and created something that
was pretty indistinguishable
from something that somebody
I think could have written
and written well
so
I don't know what more to say
I just think it's
I just wanted to share that
like things are going
to a certain place
I mean it's gonna just change everything
I mean when I was young
I remember
I was buying CDs when I was young
and
watching bands and going to see bands
I mean just from the music
point of view how's that all going to change
it's gonna change
I mean it sounds to me like
it's not going to be music
bands it's going to be
a prompt
it's gonna be very synthetic
and yeah maybe there'll be
some people that push
I mean it could all be prompts
I mean it could be that
creativity comes from people
working with AI
to create new things
but it could just be inevitable
where you've got human beings
creating prompts with AI
which is using I mean at the end of the day
music is maths
and even creating I mean
probably music is probably the easiest
thing
to
effect emotion with
because it is so mathematical
if you understand music theory
you know you can
you can create music
to create a certain mood
but
still
anyway I hope you enjoyed the song
I did like
the song
but yes I did also find it
rather disturbing
so
AI it's awesome
power
okay that's all
bye
you want one thing
and you'll scream all night
tiny fist
full of fire
voice like thunder
rising higher
blankets tossed
silence broke
you don't care you want that milk
feed me now
I'm not gonna wait
this hunger storm
just won't obey
milk is life
I'll cry forever
if you go
feed me now don't
hesitate your arms
your chest my perfect plane
soothe me
hold me rock me slow
until the warm
tide starts to flow
2 am
and the house is still
but your lungs climb up that hill
no lullaby
no teddy bear
can match the power
of your glare
blank stare burning
through the dark
you don't whisper
you leave a mark
mama papa hear my roar
I want the milk
and then some more
feed me now
I'm not gonna wait
this hunger storm
just won't obey
milk is life
all I know I'll cry
forever if you go
feed me now
don't hesitate
your arms your chest
my perfect plane
soothe me hold me
rock me slow
until the warm tide starts
to flow
no sleep for you
no peace for me
it's a milk fuel destiny
one more ounce
maybe I'll rest
or maybe I'll scream and protest
feed me now
I'm not gonna wait
this hunger storm
just won't obey
milk is life
it's all I know
I'll cry forever if you go
feed me now
don't hesitate
your arms your chest
my perfect plane
soothe me hold me
rock me slow
until the warm tide
starts to flow
soft snow
but not for long