One of the things that I’ve heard over and over as a talking point against AI is that “AI has no soul” and that “any work that uses AI cannot be artistic” or it can’t connect with humans. 

But really, we’re all bopping to Saja Boys’ “Soda Pop” from Netflix’s K-Pop Demon Hunters. 

Let me lay some groundwork before we move forward. At a recent event held by OpenAI in Korea, one of the composers of “Soda Pop” said that AI helped him get ideas. The singer/songwriter Vince, one of the credited composers on the song, was speaking at the event and explaining how AI was already being used in K-Pop production. A now-deleted tweet from one of the OpenAI staff claims that Vince said it “...gave him ideas to make it sound more ‘bubbly’.”

Now because the event itself was in Korean and we are reading all of the reporting in translation, there is likely nuance being lost. Further, we are basing this on a now-deleted tweet and a lot of internet discourse which, as of this writing, has not yet been addressed by either Vince or Netflix. 

Still, what we can establish is that at the OpenAI event, they did speak about using AI and ChatGPT specifically, and that Vince did say that he used it for inspiration. This is enough to throw people into a rage. Not just that, fans feel “burned” that AI was used and they were not told, as if some kind of wool was pulled over their eyes and then something was revealed and they are now revulsed. 

And yet, that song is a banger. Where I come in here is, maybe it’s not a banger despite AI, but because of it. That’s not me saying that Vince and his co-composers could not have made something amazing without AI. But what I am saying is that AI here was used as a tool for ideation, in the same way that you might use a notebook, a mind-map, or even build out a murder-board for ideas. 

This is where we introduce nuance to the conversation. Would this song be as good if it were composers telling a chatbot, “Make me a song about soda pop and demons and make it K-pop?” No, and they wouldn’t be doing their part as composers either. What I contend is that because the writing team was already highly skilled and brought their artistry to it, their use of a chatbot would have just been another tool in their writing toolkit. 

Whether in the future generative AI will be able to compose something like this is still an open question. With the models we have now, it doesn’t seem likely. Will models get better? Maybe? Probably? 

But for the moment, the question is: does our knowledge that AI was part of the workflow of “Soda Pop” diminish our enjoyment of the song? Does it diminish the “goodness” of the song itself? I think for one thing, you can’t take back how much you might have already enjoyed the song. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve streamed it already.

Does knowing that AI was used make me think less of the composers, musicians, and overall even the movie itself? This movie connected with people profoundly and is the most watched Netflix movie of all time, making the crossover from streaming into theaters. And “Soda Pop is undeniably catchy, fun, and smart. AI didn’t write those melodies, it didn’t make those hooks, and it certainly didn’t perform them either. I can still celebrate all the artistry put into the film 100%. 

What this should make us think about then is, how open should we be about people embracing AI for artistic work? The current discourse demonizes any kind of use of AI, at any point. But here’s the real question: What happens when artists of all kinds embrace the possibilities that the technology has to offer? What could they create then, if this is only the start?