While researches, discussions and studies on artificial intelligence are continuing, what it can do and its limits are still not fully determined. While some experts and scientists find the points that artificial intelligence can reach exciting, others see it as dangerous and think that human control should be provided at every moment of artificial intelligence development.
There are different opinions about whether artificial intelligence, which is the subject of studies and researches in the field of social sciences, can write poetry, lyrics and musical notes. It has been suggested that artificial intelligence cannot do these things because it is not an emotional being like a human and does not experience emotions such as grief, pain, sadness, happiness, excitement and love. Of course, there are those who think that artificial intelligence knows no bounds in this regard. While the inferences and discussions continued, artificial intelligence completed several important music studies in the process.
“Artificial intelligence itself is a work of art”
Google’s artificial intelligence program Magenta recently released a song called Drowned in The Sun, inspired by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Finally, a group of musicians and scientists, using artificial intelligence, completed the 10th Symphony, the unfinished work of Ludwig van Beethoven, which he could not complete due to his death.
Ahmed Elgammal, who is part of the team and director of the Art and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Reutgers University, said that artificial intelligence itself is a work of art, and the way it produces music and learns about music is very similar to what it is now. “For example, you write an email. The email tries to guess what the next word is for you. So in music, it’s trying to teach the AI how to predict the next note. “AI can basically learn how to do this by looking at a lot of music,” he said.
The final version will be released next week.
The team first met in Germany with a live audience in November 2019 to deliver an early test. During this meeting, after completing the concert, the listeners were asked where the artificial intelligence started and it could not be distinguished from which part belongs to the artificial intelligence. Although those who are aware of the difference say, “It sounds like classical music, but not exactly like Beethoven,” its inability to distinguish it completely is considered a success of artificial intelligence.
The completed work was supposed to be published last year, the “Year of Beethoven” on the occasion of his 250th birthday, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The team worked on the piece for 2 more years with the feedback coming after the test concert in 2019. The final version of the work will be published next week.