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Having recently spent some time browsing the submissions of /r/deepdream and seeing how far computer generated imaging has come, I have no doubts that one day we will be listening to wonderful sounds that are generated by artificial intelligence. However an intrinsic part of the music (to me, anyways) as an art form, is the humanity of it. A computer can generate lyrics that are relatable on the surface, but knowing that there isn't a person behind those words, feeling what I'm feeling, definitely detracts from the experience of the whole.

That being said, this is incredibly exciting to me, and I look forward to seeing how it progresses, and probably challenges my ideas of what music is

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> but knowing that there isn't a person behind those words, feeling what I'm feeling, definitely detracts from the experience of the whole.

I recently had a discussion about this with a musician. I said that I didn't like when music was produced (and certainly lyrics written by) somebody else than the performer. I said it took away from the experience of 'getting to know' the person I was listening to.

She basically replied, that I was being extremely old fashioned, and that this 'idea' of music was very harmful for the business. She said it prevented people from working together and each contributing what they did best.

If she's right, I guess we just have to interpret the music on its own, and not see it as a mental state of some individual creator. Maybe this is related to, when authors are annoyed that people identify them with their main characters. In any case, non-individual art doesn't seem to be going away.

I only really care whether the singer is able to convey the emotion behind the song. In reality I don't even know who writes a given song most of the time, only the performer.

We can argue whether, for example, Adele is better at conveying emotion because she wrote the song. What we shouldn't do is claim that it's impossible for someone to do so if they didn't write the lyrics themselves.

Now, once you abstract that, does it matter whether the original writer was human as long as they produce something a singer can then connect with emotionally and then project? I don't know. I feel like ignorance would be bliss.

The way popular music is produced today, the artists performing almost never write their own music. Songs are shopped around by songwriter/producers to music labels, and label executives say "yes, that song properly portrays the slutty image we want to market for Miley Cyrus, we'll buy it." Then Miley performs it and we all cringe...

It's sad, but this is the reality of the music industry today. It also means it's highly unlikely that a modern version of the Beatles would ever exist or become successful in the music industry. I guess Coldplay is probably the closest we will come (they certainly write all of their own music).

An interesting point, but s/person/people/ and the same argument still applies. It's about the humanity, not the individual.

> but knowing that there isn't a person behind those words, feeling what I'm feeling, definitely detracts from the experience of the whole.

It would be very interesting to create a secret fake person profile and publish AI generated music under that fake name and see if humans feel identified with the lyrics and music. See how far it goes, who knows, maybe create the next super star. Then to later reveal the secret.

You should see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_(2002_film), sounds like you'll enjoy its premise.

Thanks for the suggestion. Will definitely see it.

I've not been following the AI-music-making scene in depth so maybe this has already been explored: Instead of (or in addition to) focusing on creating AI that can compose entire works, is anyone attempting to use AI to assist composers/musicians in getting over 'rough spots' in their own music.

For example, I often write pieces of music where I can pinpoint very specific sections where the harmonic, melodic or rhythmic choices (separately or in any combination) sound trite or boring/predictable. I'd love to be able to feed the entire song into a machine, point out those specific trouble spots to it, and have it generate alternatives for just those sections, perhaps on a spectrum from 'not-too-far-from-the-rest-of-what-you've-written' (harmonically/melodically/rhythmically) on one end to 'way-out-there' on the other.

Even if none of the output on its own was usable it would still have value in stimulating my imagination with ideas that otherwise wouldn't have occurred to me and that I could build on or refine.

> However an intrinsic part of the music (to me, anyways) as an art form, is the humanity of it.

I agree with the sentiment. But from a perceptual perspective, it's getting harder and harder to distinguish what is synthetic and what is organic. The trumpets, strings, and keys you hear on a song you like on the radio? It's very probable that they weren't played by humans: they might have been programmed and the sounds come from a massive, hyper sampled sound bank.

If we did an experiment, and recruited even expert musicians, and we asked them to classify sound clips in 'played/programmed' categories, I bet they wouldn't get them right.

David Cope's experiments showed that: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jul/11/david-cop...

I encourage you to listen to more music, particularly if "humanity" is intrinsic to the art of it. There is plenty of music made by humans that is rather un-humanlike. Noise, Drone, Chiptune, Glitch, Musique Concrete, Field Recordings, etc all explore the outer limits of music as an artform, and many have no more of a human element than somebody was there to create it (incidentally, most music in those genres doesn't often have lyrics).

Good point. An experimental algorithmic band called Autechre just released their 12th album this week, comprising over 4 hrs of music produced entirely by Max/MSP algorithms they've spent their entire careers learning to build and tweak. I think it's outstanding, many others will find it utterly unlistenable; but what's interesting is that they've dedicated their lives to making music that carries the flavor of malfunctioning machinery, while in the mean time, computers have been learning to make Muzak indistinguishable from pop nominally made by humans.

What about "instrumental" music (I never liked that moniker, myself)? You don't listen to it?

Humans probably have a monopoly on music-with-words for the foreseeable future...

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