Beyond the ethical dilemma of automatic art, what stops Anna Indiana from being an interesting project? Is it the poor songwriting or the slightly sinister intentions of someone out there creating a young singer from their bedroom, feeding it lines of likely generated material to manipulate into noise? Either way, the Anna Indiana project, beyond being a very vague blip of social media interest, would be hard to like even if the songs were in any way interesting. The First Step continues the trend of tech bros and people obsessed with creating what they perceive as art out of artificial intelligence can make something emotionally capturing. No chance for Indiana, with the coding not up to the task of coddling listeners with the security it so clearly hopes to provide them.
Had it been a better-researched project there would have been some hope for Anna Indiana’s debut, Betrayed by this Town. No such luck though and the sharp minds behind this rotting and redundant experiment put their ego and self-perceived smarts ahead of anything which can be of interest in the realm of digital manipulation. A.I. Anna Indiana. A slap on the back for that one. Pop music. That is it. Machine-made music without so much as a flutter of technical interest. The real joy of music is, that no matter how rotten or horrendous it is, there is a flicker of emotion. Nothing of the sort for The First Step – for if it is not relatable then it at least can be discussed. But this is empty, hollow, and even sinister to a degree.
Clearly for The First Step, a series of generated words relating to courage, is one of many attempts at giving Indiana a backlog of infinite songs. These are the monkeys with typewriters the world was warned of. There is no struggle or entertainment in the recording process, therefore there can be no joy for the behind-the-scenes momentum which shapes and moulds the best and worst works. Slop. Noise. Manipulated soundwaves which sound vaguely on par with ripping soundbites from King of the Hill. You could make any voice, any person, yet the immediate draw is a young woman with the voice of a very plain pop star. If this were a song from a living, breathing person, not a soul would find the spirit within enough to carry its placid lyrics or very basic instrumentals.
Just because it is possible does not mean it is necessary. Anna Indiana as a concept for what we can do with AI is a chilling sign not because of the implication of art being ripped from the living, breathing hands of people, but because even when it is generated and has billions of hours of prior work to rip from, it still comes up agonizingly short. There is still a long way to go on artificial intelligence being used in this way, but even if it can, it does not replace the passion or range a person can do. This is the skill of a vocalist, reserved for the living. It is not at all a Black Mirror scenario as that would imply real danger, though the shoddy writing for both and its obsession with flimsy tech as the next steps in the real world is a nice pairing. Nursery rhyme beats with a dribbling lack of emotional solace. “Try harder, and such,” to take some words from this withering AI attempt at crafting feelings specific to the living.
