I asked ChatGPT to rewrite "American Pie" to be more contemporary...

[Layzeebeaver]

Bye Bye Democracy Pie

(To the tune of “American Pie”)

🎶 Verse 1
A long, long time ago,
I can still remember how elections used to make me smile.
And I believed if we had our say,
We’d change the course of judgment day,
And maybe we’d stay decent for a while…

But 2016 made me shiver,
With every post the bots delivered.
Truth was hacked and buried —
No facts left to be carried.
I still recall election night,
When red swept in beneath the lights —
I knew then something wasn’t right
The day democracy died.

🎶 Chorus
So bye-bye to democracy pie,
Drove my Prius to the protest but the truth wouldn’t fly.
And them good old boys with their flags held high,
Sang “This’ll be the day that it dies —
This’ll be the day that it dies.”

🎶 Verse 2
Did you write the rule of law?
And do you still believe in all you saw —
When they swore to serve and uphold truth?
Now every court and every seat
Feels like a rigged and deadly cheat
As power clings with claws to fading youth.

Well, I know that you’re in dismay
’Cause I saw your tears on Inauguration Day.
We both felt that old chill
When the mob came for the hill…

They were chanting lies and waving signs,
While livestreams cut through all the lines,
And blood was spilled among the pines
The day democracy died.

🎶 Chorus
They sang bye-bye to the land of the free,
Watched the rulebook burn on live TV.
Them good old boys in the suits and the ties,
Said “This’ll be the day that it dies —
This’ll be the day that it dies.”

🎶 Verse 3
Now for years we’ve been on edge,
Trading norms for tribal pledges,
And trusting memes more than we trust the news.
While freedom’s painted red and blue,
The pundits shout, the trolls break through,
And facts just fade depending on your views.

And while the judges wrote dissenting lines,
The states redrew their coded signs —
No one could tell what’s fair,
With chaos in the air.

And as the Capitol rang with rage and flame,
And no one dared to name the shame,
We watched the game, but not the blame
The day democracy died.

🎶 Chorus
They were singing bye-bye to the will of the crowd,
But the quiet got swallowed by the angry and loud.
Them good old boys took a victory ride,
Singing “This’ll be the day that it dies —
This’ll be the day that it dies.”

🎶 Verse 4
Helter skelter in a Facebook feed,
As truth decays and facts recede —
And algorithms fan the fire.
The prophets warn, the cynics grin,
And CEOs just cash it in,
While civil talk gets drowned beneath the choir.

’Cause the kids today don’t trust the vote —
They swipe and scroll, they sigh and gloat —
They’ve never seen the day
When truth could light the way…

And the courts are packed and the Senate stalled,
While hope gets sold and justice called,
And no one stops the rise and fall
Since the day democracy died.

🎶 Chorus
And we were singing bye-bye to the dreams of the past,
Now the founding words feel too fragile to last.
Them good old boys let the guardrails slide,
Singing “This’ll be the day that it dies —
This’ll be the day that it dies.”

🎶 Verse 5
I met a girl who sang the blues,
And I asked her if she’d seen the news —
But she just stared through broken glass.
And I went down to the sacred mall,
Where freedom used to stand so tall,
But the speakers there had long since left the mass.

And in the streets the silence grew —
The hopeful few, the bitter too —
We whispered of the dream
That slipped into the stream.

And the bells were drowned beneath the storm,
As history began to transform,
And nothing left looked like the norm
Since the day democracy died.

🎶 Final Chorus
And we’re all singing bye-bye to democracy pie,
Once baked with hope, now a cold, bitter lie.
Them good old boys waved their last goodbye,
Singing “This’ll be the day that it dies —
This’ll be the day that it dies.”

🎶 Outro (Soft Repeat)
They were singing bye-bye to the red, white, and blue,
As the eagle stared through a darker hue.
And we the people, silent and shy,
Whispered “This’ll be the day that it dies…”

[Celerity]

1. de rec (for posting nothing but AI slop)

sorry, nothing personal

[Layzeebeaver]

2. actually, its not slop. I played a core part in framing and editing of this.

It's a tool. I used it. I explained that it was AI in practice.

I'm not trying to pass it off as human only.

Your "de-rec" is disingenuous, but also nothing personal.

[Celerity]

6. Non sequitur. I never it was an attempt at passing it off as human made.

I also reject your attempt to frame my reply as being 'disingenuous'.

The meaning of disingenuous is: not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.

None of that applies to what I said.

[Polybius]

57. That sounds human supremacist!

On a liberal board, no less! Not a fan of C-3PO?

[highplainsdem]

7. Your use of ChatGPT is unethical, if you're aware of the many news stories and the many posts here

about OpenAI and other AI companies stealing all the intellectual property they could get to, with no intent of ever paying for it, to train their AI.

Your use of it is like approval of slave labor or theft of other types of property.

It's just a plagiarism machine that dumbs users down.

[Layzeebeaver]

9. and if I did this on my own?

with not tools, spending 47 hours, with only a rhyming dictionary?

Would that be different?

[highplainsdem]

11. Yes. Of course. It would be your own work. The difference is obvious. Just as there's an obvious

difference between a student writing a term paper on their own and one having ChatGPT write it for them or having another person write it for them.

[Layzeebeaver]

18. So... a PHD dude in 1970 has 12 understudies...

...and he tasks them with studying some phenomenon.

It takes 6 months.

they come back with a paper.

he edits it - corrects it to his preference

then he takes credit for the result

then its published as HIS paper

the entire academic culture jumps up in praise for his amazing insight...

50 years later...

Another dude (using AI alone in his Mom's basement) samples the historical dataset and proves the underlying information is faulty.

Should we just agree that it's just AI slop? Or perhaps a tool? Something that if used correctly and with clarity can help improve the human condition?

If someone uses AI to write a song the inspires our country to destroy fasism... is that a bad thing? would you hate that as as well?

[highplainsdem]

49. Please look up the meaning of "understudy" because you obviously don't know it.

And any academic pretending others' work is their own is a fraud.

It sounds as if you assume most people are cheats and frauds anyway, so being a cheat and fraud with AI is fine.

Very cynical, and very wrong.

If someone uses AI to write a song the inspires our country to destroy fasism... is that a bad thing? would you hate that as as well?

That won't happen, because most people aren't foolish enough to care what a plagiarism machine spits out.

And if anyone is using ChatGPT or any other AI with the belief that using the AI will enable them "to write a song that inspires our country to destroy fascism" then I'd say they're just as delusional as the people playing with ChatGPT and other bots who've been told by the bot that they're achieving religious or scientific revelations. And the best thing they can do is step away from the damn bot.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

14. Yes.

[yardwork]

25. That is much too extreme a view.

AI is a tool like any other. You might as well say it's unethical to drive a car instead of a bicycle, or live in a house instead of a tent. Some people do try to live off the grid but 99% of us don't. Calling us all unethical is extreme imo.

[highplainsdem]

43. No, it isn't. If you're using AI without being forced to do so by your job or school, and you're aware

of the intellectual property theft behind the AI, your use of AI shows you really don't give a damn about all the people whose work was stolen to train the AI.

That's an unethical attitude.

It isn't comparable to.driving a car. It's more like driving a car you know was stolen.

Nothing you generate with AI tools trained on other people's work is yours, and it's fraud to suggest it is. You might tweak it a bit, or think you deserve a ton of credit somehow for a basic idea, but you didn't create it any more than you would have if you had someone else do the work for you.

So you're doing something unethical to generate something that isn't yours - that you don't deserve credit for. You're using something known to dumb users down and harm the environment and destroy jobs (including those of artists whose work was stolen to train the AI).

And I don't understand why anyone would want to do something so foolish and unethical.

Do your own work. Develop your own skills, if you don't have them now. That'll make you a smarter and better person than the unethical pretenders using AI.

[Jack Valentino]

53. Take a breath..............

[yardwork]

55. Jeez. I actually DON'T use AI to write or create anything.

I have no idea how to use ChatGPT, for instance. However,, anyone who looks up anything on the internet is using AI, whether they know it or not.

My dishwasher uses AI. My washing machine uses it. So does my car.

More and more people are using ChatGPT and various other AI tools and platforms. And yes, their jobs will depend on it.

It's here. You're going to make yourself angry and miserable unless you adapt a little bit.

[highplainsdem]

56. If you'd talked to the near-suicidal artists, writers and teachers (who see their students being dumbed down)

that I've met over the last few years, you'd understand that "adapting a little bit" and viewing generative AI as somehow good isn't okay unless you're willing to accept education and human culture being destroyed by genAI companies, for the profit of AI companies.

The AI companies have admitted their tools won't work worth a damn unless they're allowed to rip off the world's intellectual property. OpenAI has admitted in court that their tools need more training data than what's in the public domain and what they're willing to pay for.

Some AI bros - billionaires - have even recommended getting rid of all intellectual property laws if the AI companies have to abide by them. The billionaires will still find ways to punish anyone who steals their intellectual property, but they don't want others to have that right.

You saw how quickly the AI bros lined up to kiss Trump's ass and bribe him.

They're not intending to give people access to genAI for free, or for low prices, indefinitely. Both OpenAI and Perplexity AI have floated the idea of charging individual users as much as $1,000 a month. But they need the users hooked on using genAI first, feeling they can't get by without it.

Marketing genAI to individuals, they talk about it saving time and increasing productivity (neither of which it does, if you factor in the time needed to spot and correct the inevitable genAI errors).

Marketing AI to businesses, they focus on using AI so workers can be laid off. Sam Altman of OpenAI has said that the new dream in Silicon Valley is billion dollar companies with just the founder/owner/CEO and NO employees, because God forbid any of the profit have to be shared.

The AI companies are well aware of the harm they're causing - all of it. They. Don't. Care.

But we don't have to cooperate with their goal of steamrolling human society with the single most harmful non-weapon tech ever developed (and I probably should say single most harmful tech, period, because they're trying to get genAI crammed into as many weapon and surveillance systems as possible, even knowing the high error rate).

It's astonishing to me that they've managed to convince so many people that the high error rate with genAI is acceptable. I've seen people try to compare genAI to calculators, but calculators would never have become widely used tech if they made so many mistakes that the calculator companies had to include warnings to check all answers yourself, especially for anything important, like the standard warnings with genAI.

No one needs to use this harmful, flawed technology - which is NOT intended to benefit humanity, but to exploit it.

[obamanut2012]

32. How was Celerity disingenuous?

[2naSalit]

3. That was interesting.

A friend suggested I use such a tool to write my memoirs. He demonstrated how I could speaking, tell it a story and it would produce a rendition of it that I can edit for factual and whatever purposes afterward. I was favorably impressed. This is a good example of what such a tool can do. In this case you asked for a rewrite, seems like a pretty good response.

[highplainsdem]

8. Write it yourself. Don't use an unethical tool trained on stolen intellectual property.

[yardwork]

27. And write it in longhand with a quill pen and homemade ink.

Use of a typewriter or (gasp) a computer is unethical.

[highplainsdem]

44. Stop being so silly. No one suggested that. I love tech that actually helps, and I had an HP laser printer

back in the 1980s when they cost over a thousand dollars (which.would be over $3,000 now). But you couldn't have paid me enough to use a machine to print out thoughts and words for me, based on the theft of all the writing the company that made that machine had stolen, and then pretend they were mine. That would have been exploitation and fraud.

And it is today, with genAI.

[2naSalit]

35. One of my concerns...

In using it, and I don't want it to steal my stuff. But that means I need to find someone who can help me write them, a daunting task whether I do it alone or with help.

Still on the fence about it. I would like a tool to do this sort of thing but there is so much that it does to fuck up life for others that I really am debating how to go about things on this project... a project not yet started in earnest.

[highplainsdem]

45. You don't want it stealing YOUR stuff, but you're fine with it being trained on all the writing by other people

that the AI company could steal?

Think about that.

I've even met academics who were very worried AI tools might steal their students' work, and I had to remind them how much stolen work those AI tools were built on.

It is NOT hard to write. You're communicating by writing every time you post a message online, write a letter or send a text.

Computers make writing soooooo much easier than it used to be.

What AI does is THINK for you as well as write. It can easily twist what you'd wanted to say and take whatever you wanted to write in a direction you hadn't intended.

Use your own words and your own thoughts. If you have trouble typing, use voice/speech to text.

[2naSalit]

50. Whoa there...

Flame off, okay?

I SAID THAT I WAS CONCERNED ABOUT AI NOT ONLY STEALING FROM OTHERS, I DON'T WANT IT TO STEAL MY STUFF EITHER.

I get it which is why I haven't begun the project yet.

[DFW]

4. I don't use AI, but I've been doing this for years (just for fun). Latest example:

[Layzeebeaver]

5. pretty cool...

[QueerDuck]

10. That's GREAT! Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed reading and humming-along.

As a bonus, some of the predictable responses are amusing too.

[Layzeebeaver]

12. AI is the machine gun in WW1 part 3

those of us who refuse to acknowledge it will die by it.

[Tommy Carcetti]

33. There's nothing creative about shooting a gun.

There’s everything creative about writing a song, poem or story.

[highplainsdem]

47. Exactly. And there's nothing creative about having genAI do something for you.

[highplainsdem]

46. The people who'll be hurt by AI tools that dumb them down are not the ones refusing to participate

in that exploitation and fraud.

If you think the students trying to cheat their way through school with AI are being clever, think again.

If you think you learned anything about writing by having ChatGPT write for you, think again.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. Boring and vague. Not a fan of the original, but at least the wordplay and references in it mean something.

But then, that’s what you get with autofill that wrecks the environment. Not worth it.

[Layzeebeaver]

15. A fair opinion

but words are words

some speak more to others than others

[Layzeebeaver]

16. "wrecks the environment"?????

does nothing else "wreck the environment"?

Don't specifically select something out of context.

Fossil Fuel driven electricity giving you the internet connectivity to reply to this post?

Animal experimentation providing society with protection against contagions?

can we just stop with the false segmentation of values?

What exactly are we all fighting for here?

[highplainsdem]

17. Damage to the envirinment is just one of a number of harms from genAI and the data centers being

built as infrastructure for it.

But that damage shouldn't be minimized.

Look up the stories on the harm Elon Musk has done to Memphis, and the demands the data centers are putting on power and water supplies in many locations.

And again, these genAI tools work only because of the theft of the world's intellectual property. Which you give a thumbs up to when you use them.

[Layzeebeaver]

20. This is a deep subject

I hear you, and I agree that the environmental impact of data centers — especially in places like Memphis — is real and must be part of the conversation. Communities should never be sacrificed for the convenience of industry, whether it’s AI, crypto, or cloud services. These harms deserve investigation and accountability.

But... reducing all of generative AI to “theft” or dismissing it as inherently harmful oversimplifies the issue. That kind of all-or-nothing framing risks shutting down exactly the kind of scrutiny and reform you’re rightly calling for. And potential tools that could help us rebuild our society in a positive way.

The real fight isn’t whether AI exists (sorry, it already does) but how it’s built, who controls it, and whether we let the usual suspects (Musk?) exploit it unchecked. Walking away from the table just guarantees they’ll keep doing it on their terms. I've seen that movie before...

Let’s stay critical, but also strategic. Humans have a role to play in shaping ethical AI.

But we should not be afraid to use it - ethically,

[highplainsdem]

22. There's no way to use genAI built on theft ethically. That's like saying you'll use slave labor ethically.

[Layzeebeaver]

23. did you actually read what I wrote?

[highplainsdem]

41. Yes. Which is why you got that response. You wrote:

But... reducing all of generative AI to “theft” or dismissing it as inherently harmful oversimplifies the issue.

I'm not aware of any popular genAI tool that wasn't built on theft of intellectual property, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. That's the first harm, and it's a serious one and worldwide.

That alone makes it inherently harmful.

The dumbing down of users, increase in wealth inequality and damage to the environment are on top of that.

And I hadn't even mentioned the disinformation and deepfakes that AI makes much worse.

[DFW]

31. A guy from my office showed me what one of those programs could do

He fed some of his own writing into a program, asked it to write a speech of such and such a length about the subject, first being serious, then injecting light humor, then with some irony. Each time, it came out different, incorporating his instructions perfectly.

I had to admit it was impressive, but what if he had instead fed some of MY writing into the program, told it to write a three paragraph post praising the Trump administration, saying I had “seen the light,” and was renouncing my Democratic Party membership? THAT is where it gets dark and scary. It must be a generational thing. I am 73, he is about 40. I am used to writing everything myself—my emails, my novel, my song parodies, even my own DU posts, typos and all. He apparently uses the program all the time. I don’t have a clue how to use it, or even how to get it onto my computer. Maybe this the wave of the future. So far, it’s not MY future. If that changes, I’m sure there will be a reason for it. I just can’t imagine what that might be.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

19. We can try to prevent worse from happening, or we can let it happen by saying "we've already come so far, why not

farther?"

As the other poster says, read up on data centers and the harm they do to communities and the environment. And for what? Some likes on a discussion board?

What exactly are *you* fighting for?

[Layzeebeaver]

21. I'm not fighting for anything here...

...other than fighting for open mindedness regarding the use of IT tools, their application, governance, and ultimately how they can be used for a better society.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

24. Fighting for open-mindedness? About something that reduces creativity, reduces brain activity, plagiarizes art

created by actual people, boils aquifers and shits into the air? Lol good luck.

[Layzeebeaver]

28. What?

reducing creativity? How? Who would have done this other than me thinking about it first?
Reducing brain activity? How? I actually had to consider this deeply.
Plagiarising? How? I'm not using the music or the words. only as inspiration. like many other artists in many other sectors (sampling perhaps?)

Also, if today we eliminated AI completely, would that cool the aquifers, reduce the shit in the air?

Sorry mate, that ship (shit) has already sailed.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

34. .

Last edited Sat Oct 11, 2025, 10:44 AM - Edit history (2)

What? reducing creativity? How? Who would have done this other than me thinking about it first?

No one did anything here, besides believe that slop from an autofill program was useful.

Reducing brain activity? How? I actually had to consider this deeply.

What did you consider?

Plagiarising? How? I'm not using the music or the words.

ChatGPT is "trained" on vast collections of art and writing created by actual people, without their permission. It's not sampling.

Also, if today we eliminated AI completely, would that cool the aquifers, reduce the shit in the air?

Asked and answered. Read up on what generative AI costs individuals and communities. And stop using it to answer people on a discussion board. Have some pride in yourself as a human being.

[ms liberty]

36. Thank you for catching this and calling it out.

"And stop using it to answer people on a discussion board. Have some pride in yourself as a human being."

[eShirl]

26. user name checks out

[WestMichRad]

29. Quite a poignant poem

I certainly hope it turns out to be an incorrect fictional account of what could happen, rather than the alternative.

Sorry that others completely missed the content to rail on the method.

[Layzeebeaver]

30. yea... unfortunate

the form is ok

[ms liberty]

37. Weird Al Yankovich never had to use AI.

If you have to use AI to write, then writing isn't your thing so just stop.

[Layzeebeaver]

39. same applies to spell check...

also, if one can't type with more than two fingers, then one shouldn't use a keyboard.

Folks that can't use their hands might benefit from AI through brain wave interpretation... and they might be the one to solve unified field theory - but on no... it's AI

People who can't write music, but have an inspiration in their hearts, should not... wait, what? It's AI

and, if Weird Al (with an L) had access to AI (with an i) at the time in question... imagine the stuff he would have created!

Seriously, people... wake up and realise that we are all just the grit beneath the wheel of the steam roller of history.

AI (with an i) is here to stay. You can't fight it - might as well learn to leverage it.

And BTW... AL (with an L) is also here to stay...

Also... please note that I didn't use any emoji. Why would I use one of those "new fan-dangled things" to transmit a feeling when I can use 10 fingers on a keyboard to write a sentence that tells everyone that what I wrote might be serious or sarcasm?

[highplainsdem]

48. An inspiration by itself isn't music, or a book, or a painting. Just having an idea does not entitle you

to use a plagiarism machine trained on the stolen work of truly creative people.

What you're telling me is that you're perfectly fine with all that intellectual property having been stolen, as long as it allows you to pretend you have skills you don't have.

That's unethical and pathetic.

[Layzeebeaver]

58. I'm not pretending

I was open and clear.

Ethics? Let's keep that as a separate topic. This is something that can be discussed with clear positions.

Pathetic? That a personal opinion.

[highplainsdem]

59. Ethics is not a separate topic. It's inherent when this tech exists only because of stolen IP. The fact

that you want to keep it a separate topic shows that you're aware you're in the wrong.

I'm not pretending
I was open and clear

You were with this OP - from replies above it appears others suspect some unidentified use of AI elsewhere - but no one fond of using AI can really be trusted not to be using it in posts not marked as AI. Something we've seen done on this board too often already. And when OpenAI surveyed their users a year or so ago about whether they'd want ChatGPT-generated results marked as AI, they were told that the majority of respondents did NOT want their own AI results marked as such. Because basically these are fraud tools.

Pathetic? That a personal opinion.

So you think it's just "a personal opinion" to point out that being happy to benefit from theft is pathetic?

That says a lot about you.

[Disaffected]

38. What exactly is "American Pie" anyhow? nt

[Disaffected]

62. No replies - maybe it doesn't mean anything?

BTW, asked some American friends way back what it meant and they had no idea.

[GenThePerservering]

40. "American Pie" was a silly jingle

seriously over-hyped.

[Paladin]

42. Way too much Democratic whining over this worthy portrayal of current events. (nt)

[flvegan]

51. A Prius? How American. n/t

[Layzeebeaver]

52. Exactly!

Someone get's it.

[Owl]

54. That is excellent! Thanks!

[Blue_Adept]

60. considering the environmental and ethical issues involving this kind of slop

it's disappointing that we don't have more serious rules about it here to minimize it as much as possible.

[highplainsdem]

61. "AI is a Ponzi scheme designed to harvest large investments....a way to destroy IP for the individual and vest it to the

Broligarchs"

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220715710