Artist creates deepfake birdsong to highlight threat to dawn chorus

Somerset House exhibit will feature natural birdsong being taken over by artificial sound

The dawn chorus is one of the wonders of the natural world, but a discordant note will be struck when a soundtrack of hundreds of birds is heard in London this month. The chiffchaffs, great tits, redstarts, robins and thrushes almost sound like the real thing, but they have been created by a machine as part of a major art installation warning of an apocalyptic world where Britain's bird population has been allowed to diminish.

The synthetic bird sounds are the creation of the artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, who has worked with scientists at an AI company more used to researching Donald Trump deepfake videos to create the work.