Nuthin’ but a “GPT” Thang...

Before I bore you with predictions, I owe you a confession. I didn’t think hip hop would last.

‘Today Bonny’ now realizes that hip hop was there the whole time, it didn’t rise from the ashes—it became commercial. The stories are lived experiences. We finally started paying attention. It will forever remain and be how stories are told and passed on and on. It’s a culture — not something easily transferable or pre-packaged.

Not if authenticity is the goal.

Now let’s consider the latest iteration of artificial intelligence chatbots. I find the coding assistance helpful when I come across a particularly egregious segment of code that I know needs a bit of a spit shine and makeover. I assure you that the the appeal of generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) language models—at least in my case—to write or create anything that I put my name near is nil.

Why are we applauding the content creation simultaneously scraped from the ordinary and recognizable patterns in the digital universe? I don’t see how a mirror to the collective biases, prejudices and repetitive rubrics could be worth all of the media attention and hype.

Remember when videos cropped up on social media for the first time? Not the dancing or animals or dancing animals but the talking head sharing insights and steering you toward the right way to do something vs. what you are doing right now? Collectively they were told that if your hands were visible when you were talking, you would be deemed more authoritative and believable so overnight we were bombarded by frenetic hands gesturing and writhing around in the foreground.

This is the same thing. Shortcuts and quick tricks to being bland and desirable by the masses.

The real success of a cultural moment stems from alignment of disparate edges and artistic vision. Hip hop is many things but freestyle and the ability to be spontaneous and creative with rhyme and rhythm is not something that can be mediocritized or outsourced.

Think about that before you automate the thing that makes you unique.

MCs tell complex stories in rhythm and rhyme. Rappers write and polish their lyrics before delivering them in raps. The secret is out: Hip Hop poets love words. “The toughest, coolest, most dangerous-seeming MCs are, at heart, basically just enormous language dorks,” cracks music critic Sam Anderson. “They love puns and rhymes and slang and extended metaphors ….”

These skills can translate smoothly into literary forms—short stories, novels, scripts, poetry, and comic book-style graphic novels. Some works relate the gritty realities of poverty or inner-city living; others find the humor there and wherever; all describe trying to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing world.— The Kennedy Center, Hip Hop: A Culture of Vision and Voice