It is a rain-lashed night in a village in the deep jungles. Through flashes of lightning, one can see a tiny wooden cottage, its windows lit up by the glow of golden light emanating from inside. It could be a lamp or a candle. Or it could be the flames from a burner or stove. Someone seems to be cooking. What is he or she making or baking? Hot soup or stew, perhaps? Or fresh bread to be had with delectable butter, maybe? A chimney above the tiled terrace emits a steady stream of smoke. This storybook image, set somewhere in an imaginary countryside somewhere in the world, is generated through artificial intelligence (AI) and is accompanied by the sound of incessant rain pounding the rooftops, the narrow hamlet roads, and the grassy green grounds.
It was on an insomniac moonlit midnight that I discovered this virtual village on a YouTube channel while doing a search on “fall sleep,” not really expecting to find anything of value. I serendipitously stumbled upon this video, followed by dozens of other such videos, which proposed to help induce “peaceful sleep” in those suffering from sleeplessness. The videos were enchanting, usually with a fixed image depicting a cosy, comforting scene ranging from a warm bed strewn with blankets and pillows by a fire on a clear cold night to a scene of domestic bliss like a couple sipping steaming tea in the kitchen of a cottage nestled beside a stream of a hill. The sounds ranged from simulated rain like the above to flowing water as though a gushing rivulet or a gurgling brook. Yet others evoked the sound of wind whispering through the leaves of trees in a forest. Some simulated steady sounds of birds chirping or leaves rustling. The idea was to create an ambience where the viewer-listener would be transported to a peaceful place—read: a lap of nature—so that he or she could fall asleep.
The audio part of the technology used to create these AI-generated audio-visuals is called “white noise” or “white sound” in laypersons’ terms, and it is essentially the technique of infusing a wide spectrum of sound frequencies in order to produce the effect of a steady sound simulating the drone of falling rain, say, or flowing water or the buzz of a bee or other insects or even a whirring fan or a running vacuum cleaner.
While white noise is widely believed to help in inducing sleep by blocking out other background noises and has even been used by physicians and psychiatrists in the treatment of insomnia, they also point to the dangers of addiction and the risk of harmful exposure to blue light radiation as emitted through computer screens or cell phones. Indeed, it is an irony that the supposed sleep-inducing sounds need to be emitted through a technology that emits radiation and radio frequency energy, even if at low levels, which have the potential to stimulate the same brain that one is trying to calm down. “It is never advisable to depend for prolonged periods of time on artificial ways of inducing sleep,” says a doctor who says he does not prescribe sleeping pills to his patients for long durations.
It occurred to me that in today’s world, we prefer to depend on the artificial in order to get what we already have access to in nature. After a few days and nights of listening to the AI-generated rain in the vain hope of sleep, it was only when real rain fell on the window sill and I threw open the glass panes to let it in that I fell deeply asleep. It was the sound of sleep.
Sure, nature is no longer as generous with her gifts as she once used to be. We humans, it has been long established, have caused the earth to heat up so horribly that we have changed the way weather works. No, it does not rain as much as it once used to, but when it does, it totally drowns out the sound of any AI-generated rain.
It is a rain-lashed hamlet in a jungle in Bengal, and a humble hut is lit up by flashes of lightning. Through the rumble of thunder and the sound of rain, one can hear voices from within. A soft glow is emanating from within. It could be a clay lamp (pradip or diya) or flames from the open fire of an earthen stove. Through the tiny window, one can see cooking going on. Hot rice and fried potatoes perhaps? Or handmade roti to be had with ghee?
This is a real hut in a real hamlet, and the sound of rain I hear is real.