Japanese Girl Band AKB48 Releases AI-Generated Single

Japanese girl band AKB48 recently released a single created by artificial intelligence after fans preferred it to a song written by a human composer. The competition took place on a TV program where AI technology competed against famous J-pop producer Yasushi Akimoto.

The AI system was trained using Akimoto's previous lyrics and interview statements to develop its own creative style. The resulting song, "Memory Scroll," is described as a techno-pop track about heartbreak in the smartphone era. It received 14,225 votes from fans.

Meanwhile, Akimoto's human-written song "Cecil" got 10,535 votes. This retro-style piece featured a girl singing about her admiration for another girl. Despite losing, Akimoto had previously expressed openness to AI inspiration, saying he wanted to see if AI could write better songs.

The AI graciously acknowledged that while it's good at finding patterns in past data, the human composer might have been trying to show something completely new by losing.