Drawing us in with a cosmic and pulsating synthscape, expanding with a cerebral riser and a textured topper, FATEWELL opens You’re Not So Human with dimensionality before sharing the lyrics, “Oh I will ask what you say, when I query whatever, whenever, wherever I glitch in mistakes, you patch them over and over…”
An astral synth and dramatic risers guide us to brooding vocal ad-libs with echoes as FATEWELL continues his philosophical journey. In essence, the song is about the relationship between humans and AI. It especially sheds a light on the contrast between AI’s super intelligence and lack of human emotions.
FATEWELL admires AI as “more perfect”, “more genius”, and “smarter” than humans, able to decode thoughts, process information, and constantly upgrade, but also becomes uneasy because AI cannot truly feel pain, shame, love, or consciousness in the same way we do.
In a very zeitgeist expression, You’re Not So Human explores the fascination, dependence, and fear that come with AI becoming increasingly powerful, whilst emphasizing the difference between knowing something and actually feeling it, summed up by the final idea: “Yet codes don’t feel.”
The song comes with a trippy and almost psychedelic tech-inspired video which sees FATEWELL performing the track in a futuristic setting. The lyrics give You’re Not So Human a rather human heart. It’s full of important questions as to whether our growing dependence on technology could make us forget what separates us from it. FATEWELL explains that the song came from his “complicated love-hate relationship with technology”, adding that he loves what computers can do while occasionally wanting to “throw my laptop out the window.” That humour keeps the track from becoming overly dystopian.
We could imagine the track locking in a sync placement in a movie like Ex Machina, Her or an episode of Black Mirror. Most importantly, this isn’t an anti-AI song. FATEWELL is clear that “the technology itself isn’t the moral question. It’s the mind behind it.” Needless to say, we love FATEWELL‘s commentary and how he has channelled his curiosity into an audio-visual experience!