Hacker News Reader

Comment by therealdrag0 | Hacker News Reader

I think it's in the book "Automate This" [1] that there is a section about a guy who has spent a lot of time building AI to write classical music. Apparently people can't tell the difference, and only criticize it after they're told it's written by a computer.

[1] http://smile.amazon.com/Automate-This-Algorithms-Markets-Wor...

View on HN

Why not? Mozart did the same thing (http://sunsite.univie.ac.at/Mozart/dice/)

I think that's defensible. I'd find the exact same sequence of pitches more meaningful if they came from a human going through the emotional experience of trying to write it.

I see what you're getting it, but I think it's kind of odd. I'm curious: would the same sequence of pitches be more or less meaningful if they came from the brain of a specially trained dog?

> I'm curious: would the same sequence of pitches be more or less meaningful ...

For me, Yes. The core of the issue is that the sequence of pitches is not meaningful on its own, like all communication. When I am listening to music, assuming a human made it, I explore and project meaning, emotion, and thought on to it as if expecting it to communicate something that would complete my mental model of the artist or environment. All in an effort to feel what the music was conveying.

If I find out it was just auto generated, I feel like a fool looking for meaning in tea leaves.

To me, it's not at all about communication. It's just experience, just like a mountain or a sunset. My enjoyment of it isn't contingent on how it was made.

You are heartless

That's strange to me. I like to set up synthesizers/sequencers with elaborate feedback structures to create 'interesting' musical output, which I often enjoy listening to for extended periods, especially when it goes in directions I didn't originally anticipate. A self-sustaining structure is its own musical reward for me; I don't feel any less of an emotional relationship to it for not having written out individual notes (though I enjoy doing that too). Rather, it's fascinating to me in the same manner as a growing plant or or other self-directed natural process.

The fact that a markov machine can write music identical to that of a human indicates that, perhaps, you are placing meaning where there is none.

I may be thinking of something else, but what I recall about a similar study was that the computer was essentially mixing and matching existing classical music from known composers. So at least in that case, it was not terribly surprising that people thought the music was good.

He originally did it with rules, then he adopted an 'influence' based model.

I found an article on him: "In his view, all music — and, really, any creative pursuit — is largely based on previously created works. Call it standing on the shoulders of giants; call it plagiarism. Everything we create is just a product of recombination." [1]

[1] http://www.psmag.com/culture/triumph-of-the-cyborg-composer-...

Yes , Emily Howell.

Here is it trying to imitate Mozart : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vctssFH-M5c

Reply on news.ycombinator.com