The world of atoms holds a special place in my heart, surely at least in part because my academic training and current job force me to spend quite a lot of time in the world of bits.
Nonetheless, I wanted to highlight at least one project made of bits here, something that I wouldn’t have had the time and dedication to make manually, and for which I’m extremely grateful for modern AI systems that make building in the world of bits easier than it once was.
In early 2025 it dawned on me that AI tools (specifically Gemini and Suno) might be good enough to radically accelerate the process of writing a musical. It was far from one-shottable (many of the songs required multiple iterations of lyric-edits and then dozens of separate generations for the music before I found something I was proud of), but it was indeed possible.
The musical I chose to make is something I’ve long wanted to exist, more or less a Hamilton for Charles Darwin. It’s titled “Origin”. I’ve been an amateur Darwin-fan for many years (read several books and many correspondence letters, lived in his son’s house during my time in Cambridge), so the musical is pretty thick with quotes and references, which I worked quite hard to make accurate. Lyrics and references are here.
Origin is available on Spotify and Youtube Music.