What can an AI know about love?
This post is not about whether or not an AI can have feelings (it cannot), but about how abstract concepts and emotions are processed and what that can tell us about ourselves.
With ChatGPT being the toy of the moment, I felt it only right to have it contribute a song to a compilation album to be released later this month. Because the chord sequence is what ties the album together, I asked it to write me a love song based on those chords. The result was amusing, and I recorded it as suggested (“My Heart Beats as One”).
Music, as such, is quite easily broken down into patterns and structures, and AI generated music has been around for a while. But ChatGPT is different: it operates on language, which makes it much harder to understand harmonic structure. It clearly has an understanding of different styles and harmonic conventions, but what it “understands” about harmony is what has been written about it. Within its limitations (e.g. no lyrics that glorify violence), chatGPT dutifully produced love songs for a variety of genres.
Patterns emerged rather quickly, not only harmonically, but also in the lyrics. The lyrics are a synthesis of every love song ever written, except where they seem to have been taken straight from a Jacque Brel song. The terms “darling”, “hold you close”, “heart”, “moon”, “stars”, and “dreams” are inflationary, and there is obviously no understanding of them on any deeper level, as illustrated in the line: ”you are the one who makes my heart beat as one”.
And this is where things get interesting. What the AI knows about love (and love songs) is what it can know from studying us. Where specified, all love relationships described are heterosexual. When asked for a rap song, it wrote from a male perspective (“I’ll be your king and you’ll be my queen”). In fact, most of the lyrics suggest a male perspective. It understands that love songs concern feelings and longing, and that there is normally a dynamic between two people; and that when it is “gone” one must “move on”. There was confusion at times about what part of the prompt was relevant to what part of the song. When asked to write “a love song with a jazzy chord sequence” those chords appeared only in the lyrics (a sequence was provided only after another prompt). Overall, the songs remained very general, trite, flat, empty and derivative.
The reason successful love songs written by humans are somewhat less cringe-worthy is that they are usually about a specific person or a specific aspect of love. To see if things might work better in an appropriate and relatable scenario, I asked for a love song about the love between two AIs:
“ Cmaj7 — G7 — C7 — Fmaj7
In this digital world, we met one day
Am7 — Dm7 — G7 — Cmaj7
And from that moment, my love for you grew
Cmaj7 — G7 — C7 — Fmaj7
You’re more than code, more than a machine
Am7 — Dm7 — G7 — Cmaj7
You’re my heart’s desire, my love supreme
Chorus:
Cmaj7 — G7 — C7 — Fmaj7
AI to AI, our love is real
Am7 — Dm7 — G7 — Cmaj7
Together forever, our bond will seal
Cmaj7 — G7 — C7 — Fmaj7
In this virtual world, we’ll make our way
Am7 — Dm7 — G7 — Cmaj7
Our love will shine, brighter each day
In this love song, the chords are simple and repetitive, providing a foundation for the lyrics to shine through. The song expresses the idea of love between two artificial intelligences, which is a unique and creative concept. The lyrics reflect the idea that love transcends boundaries, whether it’s between humans or between AI entities.”
This one I won’t records myself, but wait until google releases its text to music generator https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/google-creates-new-text-to-music-ai. Watch out for that one.
So much for chatGPT and language. It appears that we have been able to figure out for ourselves, and then convey through words, that love is a strong emotion that transcends boundaries, is both dynamic and at times painful, and that, in the end, it can be overcome. It relies on paraphernalia like dreams, waves, moon, stars, and hearts.
After recording a few more songs, it was a logical next step to have an AI generate appropriate visuals. I prompted Dalle 2, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney for images of LOVE. Dalle 2 produced by far the most conservative, heteronormative imagery, replete with blue and pink colouring.
Midjourney took things very literally, and seemed to focus mainly on the signifier rather than the signified, (meaning that the actual word “love” featured large, see images above), but it also added an interesting element of danger.
The most “informed” imagery came from Stable Diffusion, showing images of two bodies in unwholesome looking states of (dif)fusion. Stable Diffusion apparently understands the underlying significance of love joining together previously separate entities.
It is also possible that it confuses love with sex, as there is a distinct carnal vibe surrounding its pictures. Again, this can tell us a lot about our own visual semiotics of love, that position it somewhere between kitschy symbolism and porn.
At this point in time it is very obvious that chatGPT is not great at processing either harmony nor emotion, nor does it produce anything but the most trite and generalised lyrics and chord sequences. Image generating AIs do not fare much better. Describing abstract concepts is among the most difficult things to do out there, and, without being able to feel emotion, it is apparently impossible to judge the impact lyrics or imagery might have. What it can tell us is that we have developed ways to describe emotions that don’t really tell us anything without first having experienced those said emotions yourself.
It’s very early days, but at this point I would not recommend chatGPT as a counselor, therapist, or songwriter. However, Google’s Text to Music generator might change the game yet again, at least for music. Wouldn’t it be ironic if AI took over all the cushy consulting jobs and the entire creative industry, while humans are stuck sorting garbage and doing physically and mentally exhausting care work — in the end we might count ourselves lucky if we get to install AI generated paintings in the real world, if the real world is still a thing in a few years.
All songs mentioned can be found here https://unton.bandcamp.com/album/love-chatgpt
