February 2026 comment

this story is the property of yi ching and no AI was used to write it

The Willingness To Be Deceived

I was recently told that the “singer” Sienna Rose has three songs in the Spotify Top 50 and is followed by 2.8 million fans as of early January, 2026.  Her picture as a pretty young Black soul singer appears if you search for her name on Google.  Among her fans are other popular singers.  But she is not an actual person.  Her name, her voice, her image, and her music are all products of Artificial Intelligence. 

And “she” is not the first nor the most famous AI singer.  Xania Monet, another young Black RandB “singer,” whose songs have appeared on Billboard and whose image is online and whose music is followed by over 600,000 on Tik Tok and Instagram, is one too.  Telisha Jones created her just four months after learning to navigate AI, using poetry that she writes for the lyrics, and finding accompanying music on a music app called Suno.  Jones has signed a multimillion dollar record contract for her creation Xania.  But at least the lyrics are written by a human so perhaps you can say that Xania is a cyborg since “she” has a poetic human soul.

I think what I find disquieting about this is not that AI is being used creatively.  That was inevitable.  If there is a new tool, why not try it out?  Build it and they will come.  The genie is already out of the bottle and there’s no getting it rebottled. 

No, what disappoints me is that people are so matter of fact in their acceptance of the product.  As long as it looks pleasing or sounds good, buy it.  If consumers happily accept the products of technology without caring if their newest pop star exists only on a hard drive, then who gets hurt if their love and loyalty is to an image?  Even human singers are fans of Sienna and Xania without stopping to think that this is a development that can seriously compete with them in the marketplace.  The producers of music probably don’t care if the idol that they have created and are promoting is human or AI as long as their music sales are high.  Especially since an AI singer is probably much lower maintenance than a human who may have personality quirks and demands that complicate relationships.

Imagination and creativity were once believed to be a defining trait of humans.  Has AI now infringed?  Analysis of literature by several writers led them to conclude that there are really only seven basic plots, though some would broaden the categories by finer slicing to thirty-six.  How these themes are elaborated is where imagination and creativity come in.  In music as well as in fiction.  New wine in old bottles.  But previously the grapes were gathered and pressed by humans.  Now AI, having all the world’s written words at its disposal to sift through and rework; to meet a command of say, ‘write me a song about a lost love or or a story about a swashbuckling solder of fortune in Ming Dynasty China,’ can mimic that creativity.  There is no ‘aha’ moment of inspiration and recognition involved but rather an electronic sorting through of a vast universe of published lyrics and stories to meet a command. 

None of this should surprise me.  It is known that people already have on-line avatars as their best friends and lovers in preference to interacting with living, breathing, complicated, humans.  Each of us in our own comfortable and comforting silo, without having to deal with other humans who may disagree with us or upset us.  More fragmentation and isolation.

But I am still bothered that people are so accepting, unconcerned, about what is taking place.  If AI ‘singers’ and authors are so readily received, then could this be an indication that the value that society places on imagination, inspiration, and creativity is becoming lost?  And with that loss, the diminished value of being a human being?