If you think the songs in the charts sound like they were made by machines, youre probably wrong an AIslyrics would be better.

Thats according to research by ticket site TickPick, which recently tested whetherpeopleprefer artificial or humansongwriters.

The company scraped thousands oflyrics from genius.com and grouped them intorock, rap, country, and pop songs. The wordswere then fed toatext-generating machine called GPT-2, which used machine learning to create new sets of lyrics.

The system composed 100 songs in each genre, which the TickPick team turned into four original six-track albums. They then ran the lyrics through Grammarlys plagiarism checker to check that the AI songwriters werent stealing from the artists that inspired them.

[Read:Researcher builds AI rapper to spit sick rhymes with mixed results]

They then tested whether 1,003 music fans could spot which lyrics were made by AI and which were written by real musicians and whether they preferred the songs created by humans or machines.

In each category, the respondents were shown three lyrics written by acclaimed human artists,and one created by an AI.

When asked which verse was the most emotional, almost 40% of people said they more touched by the AIs wordsthan lyrics writtenby Adele, R.E.M., and Johnny Cash.

And who can blame them? Only a heart of stone would be unmoved by this tear-jerker:

I stand alone and think its better to be alone. Lonely days, I just cant find the will to go on. Im in this state, and my esyes show me that Ive been taken.

After wiping tears from their eyes, the respondents were asked which songwriter was the most creative.

Again, the AIsmashed the so-called legends, attracting 65% of votes for this inspirational poetry:

When clouds part to reveal a man in the wilderness outside the pale light of morning. A secret within the door can hear him say. The clouds will reveal what I mean.

Humanitys last chance to overcome the machines came in the overall favorite category and theAI was finally defeated. It nonetheless deserves applause for this imaginative effort:

I got my rig in the back of my Beemer. Professional when I graze, Im professional when I argue. 40 glass, Im laughing at that s***, Ima be roaring at that s***

The experiment also revealed which genres are hardest forAI songwriters to master.

The respondents struggled to spot which pop and country lyrics were written by an AI. And its rock song was so emo that they thought it was written by My Chemical Romance or Nirvana.

However, they were less convinced by artificial rapper Young AI. Almost 36% of them recognized that a human did not create these bars:

In the city at night, wild stars appear. From far away, theres a quiet storm. About to collapse, Im in a rush to buy a house. The disappointment, just too strong to overcome. My ego and my consciousness got me out the track. So I search for answers, but there arent none.

The researchers believe this is because the unusual syntax of rap songs is hard foralgorithms to interpret, which should keep rappers safe in their jobs for now. But for rockers, pop stars, and country singers, it might be time to pass their mics to the machines.

Published April 24, 2020 14:26 UTC

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This AI wrote such emo lyrics that humans thought it was My Chemical Romance - The Next Web