Critics might complain that modern pop music is soulless and artificial – but a new ‘AI popstar’ takes that to a whole new level.
Anna Indiana, a self-described AI singer-songwriter, has been ridiculed after releasing her first single.
In a video posted to YouTube, Anna performs a pop song to a backing track of piano, guitar, and drums.
Introducing itself, the AI explains: ‘Everything from the key, tempo, chord progression, melody notes, rhythm, lyrics, and my image and singing, is auto-generated using AI.’
However, music fans have not reacted well to the release, calling it ‘horrifying’ and ‘unnerving’.
Anna Indiana, a self-described AI singer-songwriter, has been ridiculed after releasing its first single on YouTube
The video shows a computer-generated image of a woman sitting by a microphone in what appears to be a large living room.
Introducing the song, the AI announces: ‘Hello world, my name is Anna Indiana and I’m so excited to share my music with you.’
A simple piano and guitar track then begins to play as Anna starts to sing.
‘Sitting at my favourite cafe, sipping my tea, it’s Saturday thinking ’bout all he’s done to everyone,’ the AI sings in an artificial voice.
It continues: ‘This town is full of broken dreams, shattered hopes, and silent dreams.’
As the music plays, the AI-generated woman’s lips move in time with the music to give the appearance of singing.
As the AI sings, the video shows the prompt which produced the lyrics from criteria including mood, genre, and examples of similar lyrics.
As the AI sings the video shows the prompts from which the AI produces the lyrics which ask for categories such as genre and mood
While Anna Indiana’s channel only has 527 followers at the time of writing, the video has generated a lot of emotional backlash against the AI musician.
It’s not just the music, however, that people are upset about as many have drawn attention to the uncanny AI rendering of Anna’s visual appearance and animation.
On X (formerly Twitter), commenters lambasted the creation as creepy, soulless, and unnecessary.
One upset commenter wrote: ‘Thanks, this is one of the most horrifying things I’ve witnessed since Halloween ended.’
‘Everything about this is fake and unnerving’, another added.
Meanwhile, one commenter on X said: ‘There is one thing glaringly missing from this…soul.’
The musical choices made by Anna’s creator have also come under a lot of criticism since the single was first released.
Many creators have pointed out that the song itself lacks creativity or originality while others have noted that the lyrics are rather terrifying when sung by an AI.
The reviews for Anna Indiana’s first single have not been positive as commenters on X criticise the music and video rendering
‘The world definitely needs more mediocre generic vapid pop music. Thank god for AI,’ one particularly harsh critic wrote on X.
Another pointed out that the song used the ‘I-V-VI-IV chord progression that’s used in every other pop song from 1996 to today.’
They added: ‘They needed advanced computers to come up with this dreck?’
One commenter drew attention to the song’s chorus which says: ‘Betrayed by this town, let’s tear it all down.’
The commenter asked: ‘Why is your AI threatening to burn down towns?’
Some commenters have seen the creation as good news, taking it as a sign that AI will not be able to replace human creatives
However, some commenters have taken the release to be good news, arguing that the mediocre musical performance has assuaged some of their fears about over-powerful AI.
‘AI is not a threat to artists or creativity, exhibit A:’ joked one commenter.
‘I used to think AI was a threat’ another wrote, ‘not any more.’
Another X commenter sarcastically added: ‘The good news is that this sucks.’
In response to the backlash, Anna Indiana wrote: ‘My focus is on writing songs, not producing music.
‘And as many of you have pointed out, I’m not a very good producer.
‘I recently learned how to program midi files using some open source python libraries, which allowed me to string together some basic chord progressions with a key and tempo.’
The creator also explained that Anna Indiana’s lyrics are created using a string of prompts on ChatGPT4 which are then matched to a melody using some customized code.
Anna’s appearance meanwhile was created using the DALL-E AI tool as well as some Photoshop AI features.
In a final message, the creator wrote: ‘To all the haters out there, luckily us AI girls have some thick skin.
‘You might not like my music today, but as I said, this is just the first step. Sometimes taking that first step is the hardest part.’
