‘The apocalypse is well under way’: Nick Cave has some thoughts on ChatGPT

So much so that he felt obligated to comment on his eclectic, thoughtful love letter to all who follow his work, The red hand files.

“I don’t feel the same enthusiasm around this technology. I understand that ChatGPT is still in its infancy, but maybe that’s the emerging horror of AI – that it will forever be in its infancy, because it will always have to go further, and the direction is always forward, always faster,” wrote Cave in reply to Mark.

“It can never be reversed or delayed, as it may lead us to a utopian future or our total destruction. Who can say which? Judging by this ‘Nick Cave style’ song, it’s not looking good, Mark. The apocalypse is well under way. This song sucks.”

Cave goes on to say that ChatGPT is “replication like travesty” and “sort of burlesque” that can write a speech, essay, sermon, or even obituary, but can’t create a song.

Why? Well, it’s missing a soul.

And since he is the man who wrote “JFK/Wrapped’s spinal cord in Marilyn Monroe’s negligee” (Palaces of Montezuma,/Grinderman 2)we think he’s got a point (what a rhyme!) – head down if you want to see the lyrics ChatGTP wrote if you need to, or stick with us and Nick for now.

“Songs come from suffering, by which I mean they are based on the complex, internal human struggle of creation and, well, as far as I know, algorithms don’t feel. Data does not suffer. ChatGPT has no inner being,” Cave wrote.

“It hasn’t been anywhere, it hasn’t endured anything, it hasn’t had the guts to reach beyond its limitations, and therefore it doesn’t have the capacity for a shared transcendental experience, since it has no limitations to transcend. The melancholic role of ChatGPT is that it is destined to imitate and can never have an authentic human experience, no matter how devalued and unimportant the human experience may become over time.”

Of the many tasks ChatGTP has performed since it launched in beta mode last November, perhaps the most alarming example of its limitations was presented by Christopher Gravesthe President and founder of the Ogilvy Center for Behavioral Science, who last week when ChatGTP simply made up supposed scientific references to dress up a comment.

Murder Ballads’ minstrel described songwriting as “an act of suicide that destroys everything one has striven to produce in the past”. It is about struggle and suffering and “requires my humanity”.

“This is what we humble people can offer that only AI can emulate, the transcendent journey of the artist forever struggling with his or her own shortcomings,” Cave said.

“This is where human genius lives, deeply entrenched in, yet reaching beyond, those limitations.”

As a songwriter who regularly invokes the Divine in his work, and

ChatGTP’s attempt is “bullshit, a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human”, although one AI-produced line caught his eye: a “I have the fire of hell in my eyes”.

“That’s kind of true,” Cave said

“I’ve got the fire of hell in my eyes – and it’s ChatGPT.”

Are full The message from Red Hand Files is here.

Chat GPT’s song in the style of Nick Cave is below.