This is sick.
Shredding Bots
AI chatbot sidekick ChatGPT has done it again.
Thirteen-year-old guitarist Ava Toton asked the tool to “write a guitar solo” — and the results, as demonstrated in a short clip, didn’t disappoint. The musician turned simple, AI-generated guitar tab notations into a brain-searing solo.
But should ChatGPT really get all the credit? According to Toton’s experience at least, that’s a definite no.
As has been the case ever since OpenAI released its blockbuster chatbot, the humans behind the prompts still have to put in a lot of leg work to get satisfying results.
In other words, ChatGPT isn’t going to magically start replacing rock guitarists on stage anytime soon — but it can be an impressive jumping-off point for human/AI collaboration.
“Write me a guitar solo”
Interesting use of ChatGPT. Can it create music? Not really judging from the amount of work it took to get to this clip in the end. With the effort involved I suspect any experienced musician could do it faster. https://t.co/5Or59w0gpx pic.twitter.com/xhK52EFYi9— Theo (@tprstly) May 4, 2023
AI Solo
It took quite a while for Toton to get to something even remotely resembling a guitar solo.
“Fun thing I decided to do with ChatGPT to test how well it handles musical requests — it took forever to finally get it to give me a usable answer!” Toton wrote in a Reddit thread. “ChatGPT gave me the notes, but I interpreted them, like the lengths, and what to accentuate. I also wrote the rhythm guitar, harmonies, bass, and drums.”
In fact, “ChatGPT gave me quite a few notes that were out of the key,” Toton admitted, arguing that ChatGPT acted more “as a foundation, and I put my own creativity into it.”
The guitarist’s experience is a great reminder of the fact that ChatGPT isn’t capable of producing its own truly original output, but rather rehashes data that already exists in the world.
But it’s also a powerful tool that could help musicians or other artists out of a creative rut — though it’s not replacing them entirely quite yet.
“I think ChatGPT is excellent for a lot of things, but for music?” Toton argued. “Not really.”
More on ChatGPT: Online Tutoring Company Stock Crashes as ChatGPT Steamrolls Its Business