Hatsune Miku and her musical domination
"Machines will take all of our jobs!"
You may have heard this prospect (and seen it too) here and there, vendor-less shops, self-ordering restaurants, self-driving cars, not very far from now, several positions we have always known as "people jobs" may be done by either robots or artificial intelligence. "But wait," you may ask. “They can't replace EVERY job, right? I mean, robot artists, for exemple. That can't happen.... Right?" Well, buddy boy, do I have some news for you!
In the land of the rising sun, the robot domination is already at full steam. Pretty much every position in the service industry has already been or is in progress of being filled in by technologic substitutes, and the entertainment industry is no exception either. The artists of yesterday have to work double time, as massive crowds fill stadiums to watch a (technically) empty stage. What I mean by that is that who they go to see are not flesh and blood performers, but rather, computer generated superstars.
Vocaloid, a term that first described a program, created by Yamaha, that was used to synthetically generate and replicate human voice, is now applied to a whole new sort of performer. Singing computers are by no means a novel concept. Computers at IBM could sing “Daisy Bell" since the 1960s.
Vocaloid™ had a decent amount of success, but it only became a hit in Japan, after they gave it a face and a name, Meiko, which was inspired by the singer who lent her voice to the program, Meiko Haigō. The box depicted an anime styled character, which helped in its popularity. After that, they released a second one, Kaito, also depicting an anime-esque character, but that didn’t help, as it was a commercial failure. The third one, though, was another story. This one was given the name Hatsune Miku, and became a massive hit. Neither the program nor the character beared copyright limitations, to the delight of amateur and professional musical producers. Miku-chan, as the fans came to call her, became her own character, with personality and quirks, every song produced with the program would be as if she was the one who sang it. Fast forward a couple of years later, she became almost omnipresent in Japan. Platinum disks, top of the charts videogames, videoclips, race cars, toys, figures, cosplay, a spread on Japan’s Playboy, she’s everywhere. Millions of raging fans go to see her in concert, but how? Prior to the show, an actual performer lends their movements to a motion captured recording which then is assigned to a digital model. At the time of the show, retroprojectors beam the image to a semi-opaque glass screen, which can be accompanied by a live band. This technology is not new, it has been used before to bring back to life long-gone stars, like Elvis, Freddie Mercury, Tupac Shaqur, Michael Jackson and Cazuza, so, not only do performers don’t have to be alive anymore to delight audiences, they don’t even have to be born.