Taylor Swift’s ‘Patient Zero’ Sounds A Lot Like AI Explainer Songs, According to the Internet

Last September 30, Taylor Swift released the music video for “Patient Zero,” one of the four bonus tracks from The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore. The music video stars actress Dakota Johnson and actor Colin Farrell as a couple on the verge of a failing relationship. The video follows Swift haunting Johnson like a ghost, warning her about Farrell’s toxic traits, before the twist is revealed: Swift herself was his “patient zero.” She had died before she could warn anyone else.

“Patient Zero,” along with the other bonus tracks on The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore, received a largely mixed reception, with many publications saying that the songs did little to improve the album’s lack of depth or make up for the lackluster response to the original tracklist. 

“Patient Zero,” specifically is being criticized for its striking sonic resemblance to a series of AI-generated songs explaining science and physics. These suspiciously identical-sounding videos all come from an Instagram account called Learning With Lyrics, which has been making educational videos explaining trains and solar panels through songs that sound a lot like Swift’s since September 2025.

Podcast series The Mitch Churi Chat Show, hosted by broadcaster Mitch Churi and co-host Grace Garde, has pointed out the similarities between Swift’s newly released “Patient Zero” and an AI song that explains the physics of why steel coils shouldn’t be transported lying on their sides. Churi admitted he was more drawn to the AI song than to Swift’s original.

“This is Max Martin,” Churi says. “Stop! But I’m so intrigued, hold on. I am more captivated by that than I was with Taylor Swift.”

In the comments of the video on TikTokTikTokA social media platform for creating, sharing, and discovering short-form videos, featuring music, trends, challenges, and personalized content.Go to TikTok Glossary, users have pointed out that the AI song was likely generated using data drawn from existing Taylor Swift songs. Most of the comments express curiosity over how the AI track managed to sound more convincing than an actual Swift song.

“Have y’all considered that Taylor Swift sounded like this before AI and that AI was fed a whole bunch of Taylor Swift songs and that’s why it sounds like that?” user RiceMenace says. “Not that the song is good, but like let’s think a bit. 

Last April, Swift applied to trademark her voice and appearance in order to protect herself from being used in AI-generated content. 

Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore deluxe edition album came out on September 25.

Elijah Pareño

Music Writer

Elijah Pareño is the Music Writer of Rolling Stone Philippines. He writes daily music news, features, reviews, and radar stories of the website.

In addition to music writing, Pareño has written about the behind-the-scenes writers and producers from the P-pop scene, interviewed hip-hop artists like Shanti Dope and Zae, and featured up-and-coming artists for the Music Forecast 2026. Aside from music, Pareño has written about the state of affairs that affects pop culture. He wrote a movie review for 'Mortal Kombat II' and reported and interviewed photojournalists at the September 21, 2025 protests in Luneta and Mendiola.

Prior to working in Rolling Stone Philippines, Pareño was a freelance writer for 3 years and independent live music promoter

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• In This Article:
• AI
• Taylor Swift