Yes, the first A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) harp guitars are here. Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Me? I’ve been avoiding this whole ChatGBT thing. I’ve read way too many Sci-Fi novels that describe exactly how we will meet our demise at the hands of our future digital overlords.

But lately, it seems that every friend I talk to is using some new AI app for Instagram posts, writing, photos, research, web and software work. Well, I’m only joining them here as this example seems entertaining and harmless enough (for now).

My friend Brad Hoyt – now living in Prague – is a creative and versatile musician and also a software QA. In other words, exactly the guy to unwittingly unleash Armageddon on the human race. But, for now, things seem safe within his music-related experiments.

A year ago, he wanted to see what AI might be able to do within his specific interests. Being a pianist and harp guitarist, he put various terms with those to see what images might pop out. He shared these with me on a visit here earlier this month, and I have to admit, I was blown away. I’ll spare you the various H. R. Giger-esque pianos it spewed out (seemingly from the pits of hell itself – and he didn’t even use “Giger” in the search!). Nor will I share all of the weirder “harp + guitar” images. The following are all pretty fascinating, pretty cool, often beautiful, and usually incredibly detailed digital artworks. Assuming a non-human software program is capable of creating “art.” Is it? Whatever your stance, perhaps luthiers out there may find inspiration. Or they might find nightmares. They won’t leave here bored.

And neither will you! Enjoy, but don’t say I didn’t warn you (and for the love of all that is good in the world, do not leave your harp guitar plugged into your computer when you go to bed!).

The first thing that Brad discovered was that A.I. (Midjourney, in his case) does not yet know what an actual harp guitar is. For those of us who have switched from 6-string to harp guitar, this is good news, and can only delay our eventual obliteration.

So, it first would only churn out combinations including separate guitar and harp elements. It also included human figures. This is because Brad’s first search terms were “harp guitar, masterpiece, sculpture by an artistic genius.” Interesting! Here are other variants it created with those terms (oh, it thought it was so clever!):

^ OK, that’s incredible, and no, I admit that I would not have thought of it.

^ Fascinating how it’s then incorporating the human figure into the instrument sculpture itself (here with three hands!). This one’s very cool, but trust me, it can get creepy real fast.

^ Lovely and graceful, still two separate instruments, barely connected.

^ Starting to interweave things more. I might call this a “Plucked Stringed Instrument Dryad.”

^ Hey, this set finally started combining things into our sort of harp guitar! OK, but still weird.

^ For these, it left out the human figures, allowing it to really go crazy. I would probably display these if anyone wanted to build me one.

^ I’m not finding the guitar part of this one anywhere, I just thought it super imaginative and beautiful (man, I sure hope A.I. isn’t eavesdropping on any of these compliments!).

Next, Brad suggested “harp guitar, cutaway, illustration, style of 1950s, technical drawing, realistic, HD, album cover” and he added a visual reference of his own AVC harp guitar:

^ Hey, those are getting closer to some of our instruments! Obviously, adding some new visual reference does the trick (not that I’m putting in an order for either of the above).

Next, the “minimal line drawing, abstract” combo didn’t impress me much:

^ Interesting, but mainly weird, and pretty unattractive.

Ah, but “realistic, HD, album cover” – c’mon, I know some of you are sneaking around and trying it…what, Roger Dean ain’t good enough for ya?!

^ Hmm…back to almost photo real and some interesting designs, if a bit impractical. And trust me, luthiers – no client’s gonna say “…and maybe something with a big lobster claw…”

OK, skip that, I’ll just take a photo for my next album. Back to “wood sculpture” but with “artifact”:

^ Whoa! I didn’t order that! The one on the right looks almost produceable…

Was Brad’s Midjourney now learning his every desire? Because the next is still “wood sculpture” – he simply swapped the terms to “guitar harp.” These are much more “graphic” in style while still being “realistic” physical sculptures (well, in one’s dreams).

And just today, Brad gave another program a try (GPT-4). It still doesn’t quite know what a modern harp guitar is:

Ah, what about a Gibson harp guitar? Surely those are common enough?

OK, guess not.

Then back to last year and another “Harp Guitar Dryad” sculpture, which – until the click of a mouse, was entirely imaginary, mind you! I would pay dearly to have this one in the collection:

Forget taking over the world. A.I. can just take over the art market, binarily laughing its ass off. Would any of the above fool you?

(HAL’s voice): Bwah-hah-hah!