Can you imagine a world in which people build and program machines that lead them in hallowed worship, where printed circuits write and deliver our songs of devotion?
Well,
you don’t need to expend any energy imagining this. The day is already upon us.
A new sound, a new voice in Christian music has enjoined us to sing our praise.
This is not a young worship leader from Tennessee or a rediscovered gospel
singer from the Delta.
The
new voice was born entirely from algorithms.
Enter
Solomon Ray, the singer lighting up the Christian and gospel charts. Though a
bio suggests he’s a smooth-voiced, Mississippi-born “soul singer,” he’s not human.
He’s an artificial intelligence (AI) construct: voice, lyrics, persona,
backstory, imagery. All of it.
Just
this month, his EP Faithful Soul climbed to No. 1 on the iTunes
Christian & Gospel charts. Songs like “Find Your Rest” and “Goodbye
Temptation” hit the top of the Billboard Gospel Digital Song Sales chart. On
Spotify, he’s listed right alongside real artists with a blue verification
check and hundreds of thousands of monthly listeners.
For
someone who doesn’t exist, Solomon Ray is doing remarkably well. Praise be to
an uninterrupted power supply.
I’ve
posted one of Ray’s videos for you here today.
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