By Todd Russell
We cover AI a fair amount at PGM, specifically how it might impact gaming. If we’re all, or most of us, dead as in the movie Terminator, survival would trump gaming. The good news is scientists at the Rand corporation dug into just how hard it would really be for AI to kill every single human on earth.
TL;DR: not very easy!
Before getting to that intriguing article, which makes the future living alongside AI much more palatable, want to share with you an update on my AI band, AI Kills music project and how it’s progressing a year later, since the more light-hearted debut release Mowing That F-ing Lawn.
The most popular AI Kills song, the most listened to by human beings around the world across all music platforms combined — at least according to the play stats provided to us, anyway — over the last year is from the debut album, track number 2 – “Metal Mower [EXPLICIT]” This song, with completely AI-generated explicit lyrics, does deal with AI, here are those AI-generated lyrics and forgive the uncensored F-bombs:
[Verse]
Sun’s beatin’ down
I’m out here sweatin’ man
Grass growin’ wild
I just need a plan
Dreamin’ of circuits wires takin’ my stand
While I’m pushin’ this mower through the devil’s own sand
[Verse 2]
Neighbors all smilin’ they got their machines
Tech makes ’em lazy but their yards pristine
Got fire in my veins frustration obscene
Lawn and I battlin’ this ain’t a fair scene
[Chorus]
I don’t wanna mow this fuckin’ lawn again
Let the A.I take over no more strugglin’ in pain
Metal blades spinnin’ take away the strain
I just wanna rock hard, won’t grab this mower again
[Bridge]
Give me flashy gadgets and fancy tech
I’ll sit back relax no more breakin’ my neck
Electric power grabbin’ glory reclaim
In a world of digits the lawn is just a game
[Verse 3]
Pushed this push-mower for the last damn time
Hear the engines revin’ kinda sounds like a crime
Dreams of a robot as my lifeline
Let the future trim it all while I write my rhyme
[Chorus]
I don’t wanna mow this fuckin’ lawn again
Let the A.I take over no more strugglin’ in pain
Metal blades spinnin’ take away the strain
I just wanna rock hard won’t grab this mower again
Even though these lyrics are entirely AI generated, they do fit my feelings pretty well every time I get behind that push mower from spring until fall.
On June 6, 2025, AI Kills will release “their” third album. This one is the first that isn’t completely AI-generated. In fact, all the lyrics from every song were written by me — my first published fiction in 10+ years — in an original story that, in part, deals with humans working positively with AI. Each of the 14 songs, of which for the first time in print (except for those that might have sleuthed through various music streaming websites already showing Stillbirth details), the tracklist is being revealed here at PGM below. Each of these songs are chapters in the story. The songs stand alone and can be listened out of order and enjoyed, but to fully understood the overarching story, it is necessary to listen to each song in order presented. Here’s the track list.
AI KILLS – Stillbirth
1 – Stillbirth (The Ballad of Shrell)
2 – The Tides Will Fight
3 – Underwater Rain
4 – Bury The Bully
5 – Can’t Stand Leaving You
6 – Work Grind
7 – Artificial Hell
8 – War (The Serpents Will Fall)
9 – Seasick
10 – Comatose Pain
11 – Chapter 11 Bankrupt Lives
12 – Clock Strikes Twelve
13 – Forevermore
14 – Epilogue Destiny
For music purists, you know, the way it used to be: listen to an album front to back. We rarely do that any more with albums online, it’s a track by track thing, streamed here, there and everywhere. It’s the track more than the collection of tracks that matter. In fact, Spotify doesn’t even pay artists unless a single track has 1,000 streams in a year. None of the AI Kills songs have met this threshold at Spotify and, therefore, haven’t earned a penny from that streaming service. This new AI Kills album titled Stillbirth is a call back to the albums of the past and hopefully will encourage folks to listen to the album front to back. If certain songs really stick out, of course, listen to them repeatedly.
Just reading those song titles is not a story spoiler, but as you can see from track #7, that definitely has something to do with AI. In AI Kills second album, Love, Live, Don’t F-ing Hate, Die, there is a song called “Robot Cannibal” – track #11 which deals with how AI is killing itself, rather than trying to kill humanity.
There is actually one more track on the second AI Kills album involving AI and specifically Suno. With “Stolen Sunshine” AI music generation’s impact on “killing” music as we know it and how it allows human beings to see a more creative collaboration with human beings — if only we will let it. Again, I’m biased, but I think is one of the best songs generated by Suno about Suno. A lot of irony here and a haunting AI piano and female voice.
Note: circled in the picture above is also the track “Digital Demise” – track #16 – which has nothing to do with AI. That song is about accidental file deletion and the perils. In that song’s case, it’s specifically about spreadsheets deleted, but this song could apply to any sort of human error deleting files in the cloud or on computers and wishing you could un-delete.
Keep in mind all songs on AI Kills second album were AI generated while all songs on the upcoming album are part of a story that a human being (me!) wrote. I firmly believe machines and man will continue to work together in the future in both non-creative and creative pursuits. I’ll go even further: machines might actually help mankind thrive and survive, not die. Even the machines themselves do not seem to calculate, at least at this point, that danger is their survival, not for all living humans on earth.
So, as you can see, it continues to be a topic both creatively in fiction and in journalism outside here at PGM, covered with fascination. It’s been a topic in science fiction for a long time. Go read Isaac Asimov’s excellent collection of short stories, I, Robot (no, not see the movie with Will Smith) for just the reality of having robots live and work beside humankind. It
Now, to finish with this Scientific America article, to look at the headline of the article, could humans truly be wiped out by AI? If so, how could this become a reality? The scientists have concluded one way.
“The bad news is that those much more powerful greenhouse gases exist. They can be produced at industrial scales. And they persist in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years. If AI were to evade international monitoring and orchestrate the production of a few hundred megatons of these chemicals (that is less than the mass of plastic that humans produce each year), it would be sufficient to cook the Earth to the point that there is no environmental niche left for humanity.” – Could AI Really Kill Off Humans? | Scientific American
The article linked is interesting in that the reality of AI being able to do what’s described above as a 100% extinction-level event without humans being able to stop them is, at best, far-fetched. It’s actually less far-fetched than the movie Terminator, which sort of runs with the idea that nuclear war could wipe most of us out and humans left become hunted and enslaved by machines.
Again, this author’s personal view is that we will work well into the future with machines, as some are already, trying to find positive collaboration and uses. Will there be negative AI consequences for human beings? Of course. But we will survive and co-exist.
As for AI music generation services like Suno that are being sued? You can read more about that here: PGM Experiment: Suno AI Music Generator to Create Arcade, Videogame and Pinball Songs. This issue has not yet been decided in court, but when it is, you can bet we’ll be covering it here at PGM.
In the meantime, are you afraid of AI? Really afraid?
What do you think? Should we fear or explore AI? The latter is what I see in humanity’s crystal ball. What about you? And, more importantly (tongue firmly in cheek) will you be listening to AI Kill Stillbirth album on 6/6/2025 and beyond? Hope so, it would be nice to see at least one song get 1,000+ listens on this album. If you like metal and rock, mark your calendars for 6/6/2025 wherever you listen to music.