A marketing company in Bremen has designed the continent’s first entirely AI popstar. Watch an uncanny Ben Gaya tousle his hair and woo you with Sunshine Soul.
Aside from - or maybe because of - his unsettlingly breathy, limp voice, a mouth that moves largely out of time to his latest hit and a jaw so pronounced it verges on Habsburg, Ben Gaya is a highly convincing Euro pop star.
Whipped up from nothing in three months with the help of AI software Midjourney and Runway, Gaya is the child of Construktiv, a marketing company based in Bremen, and is Europe’s first entirely AI singer.
A “fusion of technology and creativity”, Ben Gaya “allows us to set new standards in digital marketing and explore the possibilities in completely new areas,” the company told IamExpat.
Construktiv explained that it was drawn to creating Ben Gaya following the popularity of Malive, an AI social media influencer which the company previously created. “Ben Gaya is another milestone for us in demonstrating the potential of AI in the creative industry.”
“The project shows that AI is more than just technical support - it is a creative tool that can create emotional and inspiring content - we have already built up an exciting and interested community for and with Ben in the digital space,” Construktiv said.
Video credit: Ben Gaya / YouTube.com
The public response to his “hit” Sunshine Soul may vary from “no soul… that’s the difference” to “just like reality”, but should musicians worry now that Ben Gaya is on the European wavelengths?
Construktiv believes Gaya and other AI developments will “not serve as a replacement for artists, but as an enrichment or supplement and also as a “tool” that opens up new creative possibilities.”
Speaking to Deutsche Welle, founder of the Music Tech Association (Bundesverband Musiktechnologie) Mathias Strobelto said “real life” musicians shouldn’t worry about competition from the likes of Gaya.
“There will certainly be a lot of rubbish music made in the future, and that’s actually a good thing,” Strobelto told the broadcaster, “because at the end of the day, the singers who make serious, emotional music, the talented songwriters will really stand out from all this AI-generated music. And that’s what it's all about at the end of the day, it’s about wanting to hear the music and the person behind it."
Alongside concerns about compromising the creative process in the name of a comparatively effortless end product, critics of AI’s unfettered development point out that it presents more questions on climate than urgently needed answers.
With more than 8.000 physical AI data centres across the world processing billions of requests each day, and demand growing constantly, data centre energy consumption is expected to double in 2026 compared to 2022.
Since supercomputers use large amounts of electricity and produce more heat than Ben Gaya could ever hope for in his sunshine soul, they must be cooled using air conditioning or water.
How much water exactly? According to Deutsche Welle, a 15-question conversation with ChatGPT about how to be more environmentally friendly uses around a half-litre of fresh water.
Thumb image credit: www.construktiv.de