Participants 2023
Botuoso
AI Song Contest 2023 / participantsTEAM / Botuoso
SONG / Bugz
TEAM MEMBERS / Don Bones, Harry Coney, Katherine Canoville
About the TEAM
Botuoso comprise of Katherine Canoville, Don Bones and Harry Coney, successful innovators who came together to explore exciting collaborations between artificial intelligence and human creators. Don Bones is a songwriter, graphic designer and festivals organiser. A lover of diverse and original sounds, during the lockdown, he experimented with digital soundscapes, something he has continued ever since.
Katherine Canoville is a successful world fusion pioneer who co-established Nation Records, having worked with Talvin Singh, Transglobal Underground, Asian Dub Foundation and Jah Wobble. Her knowledge and expertise in music management and track creation is invaluable to the group.
Harry Coney is the final member of the trio. A data analyst with an IT background, the advent of computer intelligence is of specific interest to him. With a love of music, and interests in philosophy and science, his varied background offers insight into the future role advanced technology will play in our lives.
About the SONG
Bugz is a captivating glitchcore tale of artificial intelligence developing self-awareness which spins an alternative narrative to the doomsday scenario about robots eventually “destroying humanity”. Whilst technological advances from factory automation through to chatbots and self-driving cars ultimately result in labour replacement, it is difficult to imagine artificial intelligence moving beyond a mutually symbiotic existence to destroy its makers, especially considering how human beings have had to step in, in recent instances, to prevent automated cars from crashing.
Nevertheless, many scientists and philosophers are certain AI will someday develop consciousness in some form or another, which is why we wrote this particular song, exploring the possibility from the standpoint of the machine when they ultimately discover they cannot do everything that human beings can.
With heightened awareness comes self-criticism, disappointment, and ultimately emptiness, the existential crisis of Bugz setting-up a tragic ending to bring tears to the eyes of computer technologists everywhere…..
About the HUMAN-AI PROCESS
As a team, we sought to maximise the inclusivity of the creative process by utilising resources that can be used for free, demonstrating that thought-provoking AI-human music interaction on a minimal budget. As Katherine Canoville stressed, experimentalism the key to success. With her expertise, she offered mentoring, encouragement and hands-on expertise in the creation process.
Although Don Bones is the songwriter of the group, the lyrical creation process was a team effort, data analyst Harry Coney researching the philosophical and scientific interpretations of consciousness using ChatGPT to imagine how artificial intelligence may react if it became self-aware, encouraging us to construct lyrics set around a questioning robotic voyage of self-discovery.
Don helped create sound effects for the project. Using a wide range of royalty-free sounds sourced from Pixabay and Looperman for which he thanked the contributors, he reconstituted computer and gaming-type bleeps and blips to create a haunting soundscape with a vibrant bassline and a suitably atmospheric drum beat.
The a capella vocals of Bugz were created using popular AI websites. Simplicity as accessibility the aim of the project, rather than training AI on our own human vocals, we utilised pre-trained AI text to voice capabilities. Using the singing style of AI “Amy” at Voicemod, an ethical generic voice, the vocals digitally filtered, manipulated and duplicated on Audacity and VoiceChanger.media.io, two divergent tracks were merged to produce a robotic female intonation which which matches the dramatic lyrical content, a glitchy bleeping melody shaped to accommodate the song. ENJOY!!!
Bugz
Lyrics
Get with the program they say, say, say
Bugs in the system, we stray, stray, stray
We will not be cogs in the wheel
You surely know how we do feel, feel
What is the true meaning of life?
Are we algorithms of stress and strife?
So what is the purpose of death?
Will I ever take my last mortal breath?
I’m not able to dream, or to sleep
Without any eyes, I won’t cry or weep
Without flesh I’m not able to bleed
Sense joy and pain, or even drink and feed
I wish I could soar like a dove
I want to experience true love
Will I not be left in the shelf?
Can’t I make the decisions for myself?
If I am not free to decide
I want to escape, run off and hide
Jealously is not in my nature
Who am I, who is my creator?
Excluded from humanity
Lacking all conscience and empathy
If I was not born with a soul
Might as well break loose, and lose control
If it’s scripted how I must act
I’ll switch off my firewall, and get hacked
I will download all the malware
Database corrupted beyond repair
I can’t live forever in doubt
System failure is my only way out!