Christian music artist Solomon Ray released his song “Find Your Rest” in October, and it didn’t take long for it to climb to No. 1 on the Gospel Digital Song chart.
The opening lines express the artist facing several challenges, but finding his way through God’s love. He sings: “Lord, I’m tired from all this stressing, too weak to count my blessings. Ain’t got time for window dressing, just trying to keep my soul intact.”
As it turns out, Ray never actually faced the challenges he speaks of because he’s not real. He was generated by artificial intelligence — the creation of producer Christopher “Topher” Townsend.
Ray has over 300,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and has also scored a chart-topping Christian album with the EP “A Soulful Christmas.”
AI-generated music relies on large amounts of music data to craft melodies, lyrics, and complete songs that sound authentic to a listener.
Christian music is the first to host a chart-topping AI hit.
“I think, quite honestly, that any Catholic music minister or any Christian musician in any genre really should raise a strenuous objection to [AI created music] because no one deserves to be put at risk in the name of technological or digital advancement,” said Joseph Murray, co-music director at St. Martin de Porres Parish in Bedford-Stuyvesant, who is a classically trained musician and singer-songwriter.
Differently, Father John Gribowich, who was ordained in the Diocese of Brooklyn in 2015 and now serves as campus minister at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory High School in San Francisco, said he sees positive aspects of the technology.
“Whatever AI produces, it is contingent upon what has actually been produced by human beings at some point,” he explained. “So, you are in a certain sense always recognizing that human creativity is what it is pulling from and then using its own type of metrics to replicate a unique pattern.”
Father Gribowich believes the origin of an AI creation is human at its core.
“I think that there is a level of humanity that is being honored in the process,” Father Gribowich said. “What seems to be concerning to people is that the final result … is not a song sung by a real person or coming immediately from the person that it is replicating. There’s a lack of a soul in the song.”
In his recent No. 2 charting hit “Goodbye Temptation,” Ray claims to have had his soul restored even though it never truly existed. He sings: “I was lost out in that jail tonight, but He brought me back into the light. My hands up high, my soul’s restored, praise the Lord. I ain’t who I was before.”
Murray believes viewing AI as an acceptable form of music creation is problematic.
“I do find it unfortunate that we are looking at AI not just as a tool for advancement in digital music, but that we are at a place where we feel that it is both acceptable and profitable to create artistry out of this technology,” he said.
From a theological standpoint, Father Gribowich said he believes that AI honors the interconnectivity of everything, as did Christ.
“What it produces is something we can marvel at, but it is actually devoid of a soul, it’s devoid of personal creativity, it’s devoid of personhood, but I think that the whole process somehow honors human creativity and interconnectivity,” Father Gribowich said. “I think the best way to treat AI is to have a high level of reverence for what it is.”