A few months ago, I told you about some AI toys tools I’d been playing with recently. One thing I mentioned in that post was a Google tool that could take your notes and turn them into a podcast or talk show, with two hosts chatting back and forth about whatever your notes contained. After feeding the tool a brief one-pager about the topic I had in mind, I was pretty amazed at what came back.
Well, just a few weeks ago I decided to try that again, this time with a little more preparation and organization ahead of time. And I thought I’d see how the “hosts” did with a topic near and dear to my heart — one of my own songs.
I selected the song “Here I Sit, Broken-Hearted.”
Now, if you’re not familiar with the song, you probably should go give it a listen first. You can stream it on your favorite service here, or you can watch the YouTube video here. This will give you an idea of what the song’s about, because it contains a couple layers of meaning along with a decent dose of humor. I was wondering, among other things, if the AI hosts would “get it.”
They “got” way more than I bargained for.
To create the discussion, I provided the AI with two things: A link to the page here on my site with the song’s lyrics, and a link to the song’s YouTube video. That’s it. Then you push the button, and the AI uses the information you’ve given it to create the hosts’ discussion.
What comes back from that is an audio file of the discussion. I turned this file into a video for distribution. The only thing I changed in the audio itself was that there was one section — about two minutes’ worth — where the hosts repeated an entire bit of what they’d already said. I edited out that repetition, so that particular part of the discussion is only in there once instead of twice. Other than that, the hosts’ discussion is exactly as the AI created it.
I dubbed in an intro and outro using portions of my song, plus (using AI) I created a visual of the two hosts so people had something to look at as they watch the video.
Here is the result:
In some ways this discussion is totally amazing and profound, and in other ways it’s funny as hell. It’s actually, I think, a little bit of both.
If you’ve ever had a literature class in high school or in college where you had to analyze a story or a poem, you’ll feel right at home here. The hosts dissect all the little nuances and possible meanings of the song’s symbolism. They call it a “deep dive,” and they really do a deep, deep dive into the lyrics. And they come up with some interesting insights.
They almost turn this song into one of the great works of modern literature. Move over, Bob Dylan — Nobel Prize here I come!
But seriously… I think this entire exercise is extremely fascinating. The hosts’ discussion treads the line between profound insight and hilarious misunderstanding. It hits on both as it progresses. Maybe that’s a credit to me, the songwriter. Maybe that means I successfully had the song tread that same line, which is sort of what I was trying to do.
Or maybe it means the AI is a little more perceptive than we give it credit for. Or maybe a lot more perceptive…
Even most of AI’s creators emphasize that the machines are not “thinking” in the same way that we humans do, and they train the machines to tell you that. But I don’t know.
All I know is that this entire AI phenomenon is mind-boggling, and that this little podcast episode is evidence of that. I also know that AI is evolving far more quickly than most people realize (this podcast episode is evidence of that, too), and that by interacting with AI with open and creative minds we can do some pretty incredible things.
Listen to this discussion about my song. Wrap your mind around the fact that a computer generated it with no help from any human. Let that sink in. Then think about 2001: A Space Odyssey or any other science-fiction story with a sentient computer. And think about how close we really are….
(And just for the record: I think that’s a good thing, not a threat. You can comment below, if you like.)