The Pop Corporation

Grimes makes music and she’s got stuff to say about artificial intelligence. Now, there’s been a lot of chat about AI recently, as basically, it’s got sophisticated enough to start making soundalike songs of other artists, and this goes beyond parody and impersonation – it’s something new and weird, so we’ve got to have a look at it and talk endlessly about it until some kind of consensus is formed.

That’s the way the world works, right?

So, Grimes – former best friend of Homer Simpson – has been making the column inches fizz with delight as she’s vocally pro the whole thing. She invited people to make AI music with her voice, and went as far as saying she’d split the royalties with any creators 50/50. On one hand, that’s getting paid for doing nothing, which is pretty good for her. If there’s an accidental hit out of it too, that’s money in the bank and a guaranteed crowd-pleaser in the setlist while doing precisely nothing. But if someone decided to make something with her voice that was, say, fantastically racist, would she just shrug and shoo it away?

Talking with Pirate Wires, she said: “I really wanna just improve the diplomatic relations. One of the reasons I feel there aren’t more artists playing with this stuff is they feel like it’s against them, and… I feel there’s been a lot of artificial things, like the New York Times anti-tech stance and stuff, that have been pitting the technocracy against the artists for a long time. I think that’s been a bad breakup. I think we need each other. And it’s like, no one worships art more than the fucking people building AI that I meet. You know?”

As for clones of her? “We could get so many season eights of Game of Thrones! I think we should have the endless content. It’s like people are afraid of the unknown. It’s like, what? You don’t want abundance? You don’t want a sick life? There’s so much good fan fiction. We should be completely dismantling copyright, and letting the best things shine. If someone else makes a better season eight Game of Thrones, they should be catapulted to the top. We are purposefully limiting talent. It’s like the talent in the system like me, our jobs are more at risk. But our ability to actually mine from the talent in civilization is limited by the gatekeeping of all the art industries. And I’m really down to just let the best shit rise to the top.”

BUT. BUT. She willingly got off with Elon Musk didn’t she? Like. C’mon.

Anyway, she and her team are working on her clone. “It’s also so funny being in Silicon Valley because I was like, yeah, my consciousness exists… but then everyone else is like, ‘oh, I have one too.’ Everyone here just has a chatbot of themselves… but my assistant — I have to shout out Koto — God tier. I was like, we need to upload my consciousness, and create my personality. Then like a week later he comes back and he’s like, ‘okay, version one exists.’ And I’m like, oh, my assistant trained an AI on me. That’s kind of a large task.”

But like, when Musk walked into a room in just his pants, how did your undercarriage not shrivel up with the sheer volume of un-cool in the room? Like, did you let him lie on top of you and make noises with his mouth and press that thing on top of his head into the nape of your neck?

Sorry, we got distracted.

“Like, I’m busy. I just want a cyborg pop star going for me eternally. I have other things to do. You know, I hate doing interviews and shit. I hate having my makeup done. I hate performing. I have kids. I have shit to do. I want to write sci-fi, you know? I need to be hunched over a desk. I’m just not actually a performer. I never was. If you go back to the early Grimes stuff, the whole time I’ve just been like, I need to replace me with technology, obviously, so this is just another step in that direction.”

Cool, but like, when he orgasms, does he shout “420! LOL” before or after he gently sobs into his black v-neck? Did he try and mop up his semen with Dogecoin and then start quietly singing ‘Get Schwifty’ to himself? Did you feel okay when you showed him what you got? Look, get off with whoever you like, but c’mon, everyone’s got questions that need answering about this.

Where were we?

Ah yes, she has previously said about AI, all the way back in ’19: “I thought people understood that I ultimately probably believe in an AI dictatorship.” In a song called ‘We Appreciate Power’, she said it was inspired by the all-female North Korean military band, and “written from the perspective of a pro-AI girl group propaganda machine who use song, dance, sex and fashion to spread goodwill towards artificial intelligence”.

Obviously, the word ‘fascism’ sticks out like a sore thumb there, but y’know, when Elon waddled over to you with his sticky feet schlurping off the kitchen floor to put his soft, boneless arms around your waist, did you sink into his Top Gun leather jacket, and breathe in the smell of Red Bull and think ‘this sexy man is the man for me!’ or what?

Like, it’s on us that we’re completely ignoring the messages you’ve said and utterly ignored all the music you’ve made in this piece and focused on trivial and quite possibly demeaning, even sexist tropes, by talking about your sex life… but come on… it’s like… y’know… the whole thing… him… what are we missing here?

Didn’t you say he was cheap and that you ate peanut butter for eight days in a row and he wouldn’t buy you a new mattress? Did we imagine that? Is this all some art prank? Is this what you need AI for, so he can hump something in the corner while you work on sci-fi scripts?

So. Yeah. AI. Looks like it’s here to stay and we’re all going to have to learn how to live with it, and if Grimes has her way, she’ll be more interesting to the casual observer than most celebrities.

We’re off for a shower and getting the wire wool out.