I remember the first time I watched an LLM compose a song.
It was early 2023, ChatGPT 3.5 had just launched, and my friends and I were playing around with it as a joke. We prompted: “Write me a song about pineapples and porcupines”. Within seconds, ChatGPT composed two verses, a bridge, and a cheerful chorus. For good measure, it threw in some chords, just in case we had a guitar handy and wanted to perform Pineapples and Porcupines in the middle of the street.
That was my oh, wow moment with AI. If AI could write a decent song in seconds, what did that mean for songwriters? Consultants? Lawyers? Heck, what about my job as a sales consultant?!
Since then, the internet’s been awash with doomsday predictions about the future of work. AI commentator Ethan Mollick declared that “AI seems almost built for cheating”. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, predicted that AI would destroy 95% of creative marketing jobs. Like me, creatives and professionals everywhere started to silently freak out.
But then, I stumbled upon a video of rapper Lupe Fiasco using an AI tool called TextFX to co-write a song called “Glass of Water”. And guess what? It wasn’t some effortless, instant masterpiece situation. Throughout the video, Lupe sits hunched over a notebook, clutching a pencil, painstakingly wrestling with words to come up with each line:
Why wasn’t he simply commanding AI to “Write me a rap about a glass of water in the style of Lupe Fiasco“, tweak it a little, and use it to win multiple Grammy awards? I was curious. The more I watched, the more I realised something crucial: in a world where everyone is using AI, taste matters more than ever.
Taste – The One Thing AI Can’t Copy
In the video, Lupe starts by freestyling the opening line: “A glass of water, held up to the lips of a marauder”. He pauses. “Lips of a marauder” is a brilliant choice of words. It’s memorable and vivid – I could practically see Captain Jack Sparrow stumbling across a desert island. Then, he uses TextFX to find a contrasting image, landing on “Dry and flaking. They look like they haven’t had water in days.” He thinks for a bit. “Yeah. So I think that’s the one”
Notice how intentional this whole process is. Like a sculptor, Lupe carefully chisels away at ideas until he gets the song that he wants. Later, with the help of TextFX, he throws in a clever callback to the word “marauder” with the phrase “Feeling more rudderless than a ship without a captain“. (Did you catch that? The words “more rudder” sounds like “marauder”!)
It’s examples like these that make me go, “Oooooohhhhh” as I marvel at Lupe’s brilliant wordplay (while my wife, sitting in the same room, stares at me suspiciously). Lupe has taste, honed over years of writing, composing and practising.
But what IS taste? It’s that elusive quality that you just know when you see it. As Brie Wolfson describes in her brilliant essay on Taste:
You probably already have an intuitive sense of the people in your life who have great taste in something. They’re the people you always go to for restaurant or movie or gear recommendations. Maybe it’s the person you ask to be an extra set of eyes on an email or a project brief before you send it out.
Here’s another interesting thing about taste: It demands originality. It’s not just about copying; it’s about absorbing diverse experiences and forging your own unique perspectives. Here’s Wolfson again:
Taste honors someone’s standards of quality, but also the distinctive way the world bounces off a person. It reflects what they know about how the world works, and also what they’re working with in their inner worlds. When we recognize true taste, we are recognizing that alchemic combination of skill and soul. This is why it is so alluring.
That’s why I’m convinced that AI won’t replace true masters at their craft. Sure, AI can mimic style, but it can’t cultivate true, original taste. Like Lupe, good taste requires intention, focus and an entirely unique perspective – something that’s hard for AI to replicate.
Experts and Artists Wield AI Differently
So, how does AI help someone like Lupe who already has great taste? Think of it this way: A student might use ChatGPT to churn out a mediocre essay and score a grade of 5. But a true artist with high standards will use AI more as a thinking tool to get their work from a 9 to a 10.
Bestselling author Cal Newport experimented with using ChatGPT to write an article for the New Yorker. While most of the output wasn’t fantastic, he recognised how it made his writing process a lot easier. Why? Because he could offload the tedious parts like wordsmithing or brainstorming. He observed:
ChatGPT was not generating professional prose all at once, but it was providing starting points: interesting research ideas to explore; mediocre paragraphs that might, with sufficient editing, become usable.
I get it. I find writing a drag – I’m one of those guys who enjoys having written more than the process of writing itself. But I’ve come to love using Gemini (as an alternative to ChatGPT) in my writing process. It’s like having a trusty sidekick who gathers the building blocks of ideas, phrases, and paragraphs, allowing me to focus on building the actual article.
Having said that, I’m not asking AI to do the thinking for me. AI is most helpful when I already have a vision for the essay, and a rough sketch that I’m excited about. Then, I use AI to find fresh analogies, snappy phrases, and illustrative examples to add some flair to my structure. (Case in point: Gemini suggested that I add the words “fresh” and “snappy” to that last sentence, which makes it sound more compelling, no?)
Look, I’m no Lupe Fiasco, but if I’m finding value in AI, imagine the possibilities when it’s wielded by a true creative genius. The future of creativity is not about whether AI will replace our jobs; it’s about how we’ll collaborate with AI to get better.
Epilogue: Gemini vs Lupe
Out of curiosity, I decided to pit AI against Lupe Fiasco and see who would come out on top. I fired up Gemini Advanced and typed in my prompt: “Draft the lyrics of a rap song based on the words ‘Glass of water’. Do it in the style of Lupe Fiasco“. Here’s a verse of what it came up with:
Woke up this mornin', sun shinin' through the blinds But somethin' felt off, like a truth I couldn't find Stressed and uneasy, mind racin' a mile a minute Needed somethin' to center, somethin' to begin it Reached for a glass of water, simple, clear, and plain But in its simplicity, a deeper meaning I gain Like the world in my hand, reflectin' back my face Showin' the distortions, the flaws I need to erase
Gemini’s version isn’t bad – in fact, it’s got a pretty good flow and rhythm. I could see it being one of those catchy pop songs with dumb lyrics that you hear a lot of these days. But compare it to Lupe’s actual lyrics in “Glass of Water”:
A glass of water Held up to the lips of a marauder Dry and flakey looking like they haven't had a sip in days The glass kisses the lips, drawing from them instant praise They also says, I was more rudderless than a ship Without a captain adrift On the ocean of life, no destination in sight But now I see, what it means to be in need of the preservation of life
Lupe’s lyrics are on a whole other level. They’re more intricate and layered; with a more complex rhyming scheme and unexpected wordplay. For example, according to Genius, the line “drawing from them instant praise” is a double entendre, referring to both “drinking the water” and also “extracting gratification”.
Maybe Lupe could’ve conjured these lyrics without AI’s help. But what I found fascinating was how he used AI as a creative sparring partner, testing a flurry of phrases, before his finely-tuned taste picked out the winners.
This is why I’m optimistic about the future of AI and creativity. Imagine the possibilities when artists and professionals amplify their tastes in new ways with the help of AI: What new breakthroughs could be waiting to be unleashed?