"Does this count as mine?": impostor syndrome when you create with AI

There's a question nobody asks me and that I ask myself almost every week. It doesn't come up in interviews or in Instagram comments. It turns up when I'm alone, usually just after a song has come out and someone has written to say they liked it. At that moment, instead of simply being pleased, a small and very polite voice whispers: "But does this count as yours?"

That voice has a name. It's called impostor syndrome, and I want to give it a whole piece of its own, because I suspect far more people know it than admit to it. People who create with artificial intelligence, of course. But also people who've just landed a job, passed a competitive exam or published their first book, and who feel that at any moment someone will knock on the door and ask for the prize back.

A note before I start: I'm not a psychologist, and what follows isn't a diagnosis of anything or anyone. It's what I've learnt from reliable sources and what goes on inside me, told with the honesty I allow myself in this series.

What we mean by impostor syndrome

The term goes back to a 1978 paper. Two American psychologists, Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, described what they called the impostor phenomenon after observing it in women with brilliant track records who were nonetheless convinced they didn't deserve what they'd achieved. They put their success down to luck, to a mistake by whoever had assessed them, or to being likeable, and they lived in fear that one day the "deception" would come to light.

Over the years it has become clear that it isn't confined to women or to any particular profession. It shows up in men and women, in students, doctors, programmers and artists. Reviews of the research give wildly different figures, because it's measured in different ways, but they all agree it's common. It also seems to weigh more heavily on people who feel they don't quite belong where they are: the first in their family to go to university, someone who is a minority in their workplace, someone who arrived in a field through an unusual door.

One thing needs to be very clear: impostor syndrome is not a clinical diagnosis. It isn't listed as a disorder in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5 or in the World Health Organization's ICD-11. People say "syndrome" out of habit, but specialists prefer to speak of a phenomenon or an experience. It's a way of thinking about yourself, not an illness.

That doesn't make it harmless. Studies link it to perfectionism, anxiety and low mood, and it can do real damage when it piles on top of other things. If that voice never switches off, if it stops you working, sleeping or enjoying anything, it isn't a quirky personality trait: it's a reason to talk to a professional.

Clance described a cycle that I find painfully accurate. A task arrives and anxiety kicks in. Then you either work yourself into the ground or leave everything until the last minute. The task goes well. There's a brief sense of relief. And straight away the brain pulls its trick: if it went well because I overworked, then I have no talent, I just slogged; if it went well after I left it to the end, then I got lucky. No success ever counts. The next task starts again from zero.

The artificial intelligence edition

In my case, that cycle has an ingredient that didn't exist in 1978.

I write all my lyrics. The music and the vocal performance are made with AI, with Suno, and I always say so, on the first line, with no small print. I don't sing my songs or play instruments on them. I'm a lyricist, composer and producer, and I call myself the first AI singer-songwriter, which is the label I chose and still stand by.

The trouble is that impostor syndrome needs very little to feed on, and AI serves it a ready-made banquet. When a song lands with someone, my head has the perfect explanation ready to take the credit away: "What they liked was the music, and the machine made the music." It doesn't matter that the person mentions a specific line. It doesn't matter that they laughed at the title. The voice has its alibi ready.

And then there's the outside world, which sometimes says out loud what the voice says quietly. I wrote about it in «Discutiendo con la IA» ("Arguing with the AI"), with my usual humour and a fair amount of spite:

«¿Por qué decías que como lo mío era / IA / no valía?» ("Why did you say that since mine was / AI / it didn't count?")

That question is aimed at someone else, but when I reread it I realise I'm often asking it of myself. The harshest judge I have isn't in any comment section. He lives in my head and knows every argument by heart.

In «La insignia de artista» ("The artist's badge") I put the full verdict in the mouth of a well-connected character: «No mereces la insignia de artista» ("You don't deserve the artist's badge"). I wrote it to laugh at him, and I still do. But there are nights when that line doesn't sound like a character. It sounds like me.

Which part is mine and which part is the tool's

The way I've found to argue with the voice isn't to agree with it or to shut it down in one go. It's to take stock. I've already written elsewhere about what is mine in a song made with AI, so I won't repeat it. Here I look at it from another angle: not as an argument to convince anyone, but as a tool to keep myself from sinking.

When impostor syndrome tightens its grip, I make three lists.

• What I do and nobody else does. The lyrics, word by word. The titles. The idea behind each song. The decision about which version gets released and which stays in the folder. The overall vision: what PLANETA GAYFOLK is, what it talks about, who it talks to, how it looks.
• What the tool does. The sound. The melody it proposes, the timbre of the performance, a good part of the arrangement. I don't invent that note by note and I'm not going to pretend I do.
• What we do between us. That moment when a version gives the lyric a meaning I hadn't foreseen, and I recognise it, and I choose it. There, authorship is shared, and I think it's healthy to say so.

What's interesting about these lists is that the impostor's voice only ever looks at the second one. It takes what the tool does and turns it into the whole thing. The lists force me to look at all three at once. Not to conclude that everything is mine, which would be a lie, but to stop concluding that nothing is, which is also a lie.

There's one fact that helps me a lot, precisely because it's cold. I've released around 273 songs. It took me about two years to put out the singles and the music videos. Every one of them has a lyric I wrote. No tool writes «No mereces la insignia de artista» for me or decides that a song will be called what it's called. When the voice says "you haven't done anything", I show it the number. It doesn't always go quiet. But it turns the volume down.

Comparing yourself with "real" musicians

There's a trap I know well and want to take apart out loud: comparing myself with "real" musicians.

The inverted commas are deliberate. I hugely admire people who play an instrument, who spent years at the conservatoire, who sing live and put themselves on the line every night. That craft is real and I respect it without reservation. Respect isn't the problem. The problem is what impostor syndrome does with it.

The voice takes those musicians and turns them into a yardstick I'll never reach, because it measures something else. It's like a screenwriter feeling like a fraud for not knowing how to operate the camera, or an architect for not laying bricks. The comparison looks logical, but it mixes up different jobs. I'm not competing in the performer category. I've never entered that contest.

What I can do is compare like with like. Do my lyrics say something? Do they have humour, pain, characters? Do people recognise themselves in them? There I can measure myself against other songwriters, and there the comparison no longer leaves me on the floor. It leaves me in my place, which is a modest place and a fairly dignified one.

There's something else. Impostor syndrome tends to compare you with the best version of everyone else and the worst version of yourself. You compare your draft with their finished album, your night of doubts with their photo on stage. "Real" musicians doubt too, bin songs too, feel like frauds sometimes too. In fact, the phenomenon was first described in successful people, not in people without success. Feeling it, then, doesn't put me on the list of frauds. Funnily enough, it puts me on the same list as plenty of people I admire.

Living with the voice without letting it freeze you

I haven't managed to make the voice disappear, and I've stopped waiting for it to. What I try to do is keep it out of the driving seat. These are the things that help me, and they overlap quite a lot with what the psychology guides I've read recommend. They're not a prescription: they're habits.

• Name it. When the thought "this doesn't count" turns up, I tell myself: "Oh, it's you again." It sounds silly, but separating the thought from the truth already changes a lot. A thought isn't a fact, however convinced it sounds.
• Tell feeling apart from being. I can feel like a fraud without being one. Both fit into the same Tuesday. The feeling is real; the conclusion isn't necessarily.
• Keep a record of what's done, not just of what's missing. At the end of the week, jot down what actually got finished: a lyric wrapped up, a title that made me laugh, a video edited. The impostor's voice only keeps the ledger of what's pending; someone has to keep the other one.
• Accept a compliment without handing it back. When someone tells you they liked a lyric, the temptation is to reply straight away with "well, the music helps a lot". I try to say just "thank you". It's hard. But every time I hand back a compliment, I prove the voice right.
• Lower the bar of perfection. Perfectionism and impostor syndrome are first cousins. If only perfect counts, nothing ever counts. Releasing something good beats hiding something perfect that doesn't exist.
• Talk about it. This piece is part of that. The voice feeds on secrecy. When you repeat it out loud, to a friend, to your therapist, to someone you trust, it loses a lot of its authority: said in daylight, it sounds far less convincing than it does in your head in the small hours.

And one more, which is mine: laughing. My songs are camp, queer, sometimes very explicit, and humour is part of the work. It's also part of how I look after myself. When the voice gets solemn and tells me I don't deserve anything, sometimes I answer it the way one of my characters would. It doesn't fix the root of it. But it knocks the crown off its head.

What I won't say is that music cures me. It holds me up, gives me a reason, puts order into my weeks. But it doesn't replace therapy. If the impostor's voice comes together with sadness that won't lift, constant anxiety or the feeling that you're worthless, that deserves a professional's attention, just like any other pain.

If you need it, ask for help

Impostor syndrome isn't a disorder, but it can go hand in hand with others that are, such as depression or anxiety. If you notice it weighing on you too much, talk to your GP or to a qualified psychologist, and tell someone you trust as well. You don't have to be at rock bottom to ask for help.

If at any point you think about hurting yourself or ending your life:

• In Spain, call 024, the suicide prevention line. It's free, confidential and open 24 hours a day.
• If there's immediate danger, call 112.
• In Latin America and the rest of Europe, call your country's emergency number.

Asking for help isn't admitting you're a fraud. It's the opposite: it's taking yourself seriously. This piece is part of the series «Salud mental sin tabú» ("Mental health without taboo"), where you'll find all the others and more resources.