Well, there go our jobs and livelihoods as entertainment journalists. On Thursday, Vogue sat Billie Eilish down for an interview with an “AI” that generated some surprisingly insightful questions. Fair warning: As with any “bot-written” parody or spec script, these questions are sort of more the product of a language-learning neural network working with a writer or programmer, in this case, Nicole He. The HAL-style computer voice is an especially charming touch. Halfway into the interview, the AI asks, “Do you want to go back to being anonymous?” and Eilish says no, explaining how she once disguised herself as a normie to go for dinner with a friend: “I was like, ‘Why don’t I try to disguise myself?’ So I put on a wig. I put on just a hoodie and a little bow on my head, and some jeans. And I went out. And I hated it. I hated it. I hated it. It’s so fucked up! I just didn’t like it. I was like, People aren’t nice to me now.”
Kind of wild to hear it spelled out like that. Regular people get treated like trash and celebs get to wear Prada bucket hats and become friends with a robot. Eilish knows how annoying this answer sounds, though, so she clarifies: “I think mainly, it’s that I wouldn’t wanna not be me. I think that’s what it is. It’s not like I wanna suddenly be somebody who isn’t me, and be anonymous. I want to be who I am, and that means that I have to be this way, and live this life.” She added: “I hope that doesn’t come off as cocky. I hope that it comes off as, like, grateful. I have an incredible life.”
She also said if she didn’t become a Grammy-winning artist, she always wanted to work at Jamba Juice or Trader Joe’s, a very normal teen aspiration. Alas!