Artificial Intelligence and Society
Lately, the issue of AI-driven unemployment has been making headlines, and I find myself wondering what the reality of the situation really is. The idea is that employees performing tasks that can be easily replaced by AI will become redundant, so companies plan to lay them off to streamline operations. From the perspective of those being laid off, the know-how and experience they’ve acquired up to that point will become worthless, which may leave some people unable to find new jobs. This is likely to affect those in so-called creative professions—such as programmers, illustrators, musicians, and writers (or those who support them)—as well as white-collar workers handling routine administrative tasks. Among those whose work involves creating illustrations, music, and writing, there will likely be some who try to fight back against AI companies on grounds of copyright infringement.
However, considering the mechanisms of generative AI and the power of the organizations driving it (primarily the U.S. government and American business community), one gets the feeling that even if we fight directly over copyright or intellectual property rights, we probably won’t win in the grand scheme of things. In the sense that generative AI utilizes a massive amount of existing creative works during the process of training neural networks, it can be said to depend on existing copyrighted works. However, the output generated from this process is modified by random numbers, so it cannot be said that no original results emerge. While the output is statistically likely to resemble a template, it is not simply a copy-paste of existing works, as there is a significant probability that distinct results will emerge. Furthermore, it is easy to understand that in the event of a conflict, it is the side with greater power that will have its rights protected, and that claimed rights are not guaranteed to be upheld in every situation.
To add another point, the reason the business world is focusing on artificial intelligence likely stems from the conflict of interests between the capitalist class (the ruling class) and the working class (the ruled class). It can be surmised that there is a motive to develop artificial intelligence in order to devalue labor and keep wages low. While it is often said that the development of AI will eliminate the need to work, a more realistic vision of the future seems to be one where the working class is exploited with low wages in fields that are difficult for AI to replace. Alternatively, white-collar jobs may increasingly become “bullshit jobs” (jobs that pay high wages despite having no social significance), meaning that while high salaries are maintained, the hierarchy of capitalists > managers > middle class > workers will be further reinforced.
I am generally positive about AI, and lately I’ve been enjoying AI services as a hobby—a hobby that’s taking a fair toll on my wallet. That said, I honestly can’t even begin to imagine whether the development of these services is good for society as a whole, or what kind of impact they will have. It’s not entirely impossible that the growing divide between the capitalist class and the working class could lead to a society plagued by a surge in violent crime. There may be some validity to the arguments made by critics.
I mentioned earlier that the development of AI is driven by a desire to exploit workers for low wages, but the lyrics in this song focus on NEETs who rejoice at the idea that “I don’t have to work anymore” thanks to AI. At first glance, it seems to endorse AI, but from another perspective, it appears to be a sarcastic, roundabout criticism of AI—the intent is deliberately ambiguous. A key feature of the song is that it leaves the interpretation up to the listener, suggesting, “Interpret it however you like.”
In rock music, songs like this—which aren’t direct criticism but seem to endorse AI at first glance, only to mock or criticize it upon closer inspection—are apparently called “Sarcastic Defiance.” You could say that these lyrics are a song themed around “Sarcastic Defiance” toward AI. Since I put a lot of effort into making the music video this time, I decided to release only the English version (making two felt like too much work…). The lyrics I wrote are as follows.
The Lyrics
🎵 The World Finally Caught Up
[Verse 1]
Morning light, still wrapped in blankets
Shoes by the door don’t wanna move
Scrolling through another job ad
Funny thing — I got nothing to prove
Artificial brains can do it all now
Everybody’s losing their chairs
My heart beats loud like it’s my moment
Guess the world finally plays fair
[Pre-Chorus]
Hey, hey
Drop the weight off your shoulders
Hey, hey
You can stop pretending now
[Chorus]
The world caught up to me
Finally running at my speed
The world caught up to me
And it’s not too late
Hey hardworking people
Work too hard and you lose the game
I’ll be right here
Laughing while I wait
[Verse 2]
Gifted artists, genius creators
Can’t beat a single click today
Every dream that disappears now
Makes the room feel sweeter, strange
Nothing happens on this desk still
But my heartbeat jumps somehow
Don’t need that serious expression
Maybe I survive like this somehow
[Pre-Chorus]
Hey, hey
Stand a little taller
Hey, hey
Leave your excuses too
[Chorus]
The world caught up to me
Finally running at my speed
The world caught up to me
And it’s not too late
Hey ambitious people
Effort’s just a losing trade
I’ll be right here
Laughing while I wait
[Bridge]
I was always left behind
Drowning in the morning news
But now the air is changing
Something’s finally shifting
Maybe being slow’s a superpower too
[Final Chorus]
The world caught up to me
Finally running at my speed
The world caught up to me
And it’s not too late
Hey hardworking people
Work too hard and lose the game
I’ll be right here
Laughing while I wait
The world caught up to me
Finally running at my speed
The world caught up to me
And it’s not too late
Everybody’s struggling
But somehow I’m doing fine
I’ll be right here
Laughing all the time
The Generated Song
Of the generated songs, the ones I liked best are listed below. At first, I wanted to create a pop-rock-style track with male vocals, but it ended up sounding more sarcastic than I intended, and I felt it came across as too critical of AI (or perhaps even condescending toward the people working on it). Wanting a softer tone, I switched to female vocals and removed the rock-like elements from the style description to generate this track.
For the YouTube video, I created it by mixing videos generated on several different platforms and then compiling them using Google Gemini (Omni). On the 26th attempt, it said I could only generate three videos per day, but since switching to Omni, the limit seems to have shifted to computational capacity, so the number of times I can generate content has increased, and I feel it’s become quite convenient. I only adjusted the length of the generated videos somewhat arbitrarily, so there may be parts where the song and video don’t quite match, but I feel like I’m gradually getting the hang of making music videos…
[Youtube]
[Suno AI]
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