The concept is as ancient as Brill Building majordomo and late-night host Don Kirschner creating a cartoon band named the Archies, after the comic book of the same name, and scoring “Sugar, Sugar,” which may as well have been created by a bubble-gum machine.
Witness the Gorillaz, Damon Albairn’s modern-day take on the age-old pop ploy, but Capitol Records took the idea to its Web3 limit with the signing of FN Meka, whom they hyperbolically dubbed “the world’s biggest A.R. rapper,” before abruptly shifting direction on the partnership with viral gaming superstar Cody “Clix” Conrod and virtual music production library Slip.Stream’s chief music officer and partner Anthony Martini.
Just weeks later, the UMG company got cold feet and pulled out from the project, offering “our deepest apologies to the Black community for our insensitivity in signing this project without asking enough questions about equity and the creative process behind it.” In other words, these days even AI has to be woke.
FN Meka boasted a TikTok following in the tens of millions, after his independent release of a trio of singles, including “Moonwalkin’, “Speed Demon” and “Internet” saw him amass “billions of impressions.” A first single, “Florida Water,” featured a cameo by Gunna and producers who have worked with flesh-and-blood stars like Travis Scott, Young Thug, Lil Baby, Gucci Mane and Nicki Minaj.
Naysayers pointed to the project simply feeding black rap cliches into a computer and spitting out common hip-hop themes, including copious use of the N-word. The online blowback forced Capitol Records to drop the agreement.
At this point, the label could sure use the services of an AI-fueled marketing organization to come up with a crisis management campaign from bullet point to execution, all created sans a single living, breathing carbon-based being.
Go to www.jasper.ai and meet your “friendly AI Writing Assistant Jasper.” The company’s website claims “over 50,000 people use Jasper to break through writer’s block and create content 5X faster, with tasks including creating ads, emails and blog posts “with just a couple of clicks.”
As a writer, a chill of planned obsolescence crawls up my spine as Jasper offers to “create content that ranks for SEO,” “finish your first draft 2-5X faster,” “boost ad conversions with better copy” and finally, and perhaps most frightening, “end writer’s block with ideas from a robot.”
Prices range from Starter Mode at $40 a month for 25,000 words $82 and Boss Mode for $82 a month for 100,000 words to custom-made business plans that range higher.
Co-founder/CEO Dave Rogenmoser sounds like a used-word salesman when he boasts, “If you’re not whistling with joy from the content Jasper wrote for you, then simply email us and we’ll instantly refund 100% of your money... I’m confident that when you sign up today, you’ll get exactly what you need to write content at scale, fast.”
That may well be, but when we responded to the company’s Instagram story with a request for an interview, we didn’t get a response. Sometimes, the human touch is needed in terms of customer service, but if we don’t watch ourselves, we’ll have only Suri and Alexa to console us.