Singer Ben Gaya is a young man with blue eyes, freckles and tousled hair. But Gaya, and his music, are AI-generated, created by Bremen programmers exploring the capabilities of artificial intelligence.
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00:00This is Ben Gaia with his new summer song.
00:09But take away the AI-created parts,
00:16and all that's left are a few command lines in AI software.
00:21Hi, this is Ben Gaia. I'm Europe's first AI singer.
00:26We want to show what's possible with AI tools.
00:30Ben Gaia was created by an agency in Bremen, Germany,
00:34with a little help from artificial intelligence.
00:37It's the next in a series of steps by AI into our everyday lives.
00:41Many have become used to virtual models like SchuDuGram,
00:45follow virtual influencers like Nunuri,
00:48and cheer on virtual pop stars like Hatsune Miku.
00:56What's special about Ben Gaia is that he was created entirely with AI software.
01:01Will AI make better music in the future?
01:05And will real musicians become obsolete?
01:09What makes humans unique is our ability to feel,
01:13to create music from what we experience.
01:17You have to understand that AI can't do that.
01:21AI can only work with what it's given and what it's been told to do.
01:26It cannot develop things independently or come up with its own ideas.
01:30It's not possible.
01:33That's what humans have and will always have over AI.
01:37In July 2024, Ben Gaia stepped onto the virtual stage for the first time.
01:41His first song, Sunshine Soul, appeared on Instagram
01:45and was viewed more than 1.2 million times.
01:49The reactions ranged from boring and creepy to rave reviews.
01:53Florian Schamberger, Pia Schreiber and their team
01:57developed the virtual singer over around three months.
02:07For us, the research is always the main priority.
02:11We want to learn how relevant AI can be,
02:15how it can enrich us, what it can mean for us as a digital business.
02:19In other words, where and how we can use it.
02:29Florian Schamberger used standard AI tools
02:33to create images, videos and music for Ben Gaia.
02:39It's all done by text input.
02:43I can mark areas in a mid-journey image,
02:47whether in the background or the person themselves,
02:51and I can change them by entering text.
02:55In other words, if he's wearing a white T-shirt,
02:59I can mark it and make it blue or green.
03:03So it's relatively easy to generate a good final product.
03:07Music software like Suno works on the same principle,
03:11but it takes a lot of experience,
03:15for example to make Ben Gaia's voice sound consistent.
03:19In the end, human creativity is what counts,
03:23with or without artificial intelligence.
03:27There will certainly be a lot of garbage music made in the future,
03:31and that's actually a good thing,
03:35because at the end of the day,
03:39people will stand out from all this AI-generated music.
03:43And that's what it's all about at the end of the day.
03:47It's about wanting to hear not just the music,
03:51but also the person behind it, the story they're telling.
03:55It's up to each of us to decide
03:59if AI singers like Ben Gaia have the goods.