Music with no composer.

Author: secularmerlin

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What do you as a human think of this piece and indeed of the idea of computers producing original music?
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@secularmerlin
Forum-point-cheat-farmer exposed:

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@secularmerlin
Using only four notes, the AI is just randomly running up and down the scale created by those notes.
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@Beelzedad
Well we certainly aren't ready to replace John Williams but do you think a computer will ever compose popular music?
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@secularmerlin
There are lots of people with drum machines and synths who have no talent but still manage to create "popular" music. All this does is demonstrate there are people with good taste in music, people with bad taste in music and people with no taste in music at all.
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@Beelzedad
While that is a subjective statement I don't suppose I disagree.
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What do you as a human think of this piece and indeed of the idea of computers producing original music?
I've heard worse. It seems to work on a rudimentary musical level.

Well we certainly aren't ready to replace John Williams but do you think a computer will ever compose popular music?
Based on that example, it is obviously possible. Given more notes, chords, instruments, music theory to work with, etc. a computer should be able to come up with something decent. Music is an inherently mathematical form of expression. A computer should be able to exploit that effectively.
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@TwoMan
Possible surely. Do you think a computer will ever compose music that makes people cry?
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I don't know about music alone (I've never heard music without lyrics that made me cry) but I'm sure that a computer could eventually produce music combined with a human lyricist/singer that might do the trick.
What do you think?
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@TwoMan
I think you don't listen to enough classical music. That is pure music and can move people to tears. As for the computer making something that sublime we can only guess right now but it does seem to be moving that direction.
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@secularmerlin
Just out of curiosity, have you ever been moved to tears listening to classical music? Do you personally know anyone who has? I've gotten goosebumps from listening to classical music but not tears. Listening to sad lyrics can turn on the waterworks though.
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@TwoMan
Yes I have. That is besides the point hiwever since getting goosebumps will do. Do you think a computer will ever compose music that gives you goose bumps?
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@secularmerlin
it is likely that 'goose bump' music tends to have a particular distribution of intervals, discordant harmonies, dynamics and key changes etc.  One can imagine a computer being programmed with such rules and coming up with an effect piece of music, but with no knowledge that it was composing music; that is a parallel to a chess computer that plays at grand-master level but doesn't know it is playing chess.

The other sense of the question is whether a computer can manifest the internal subjective states (emotions?) of a human composer and thus feel the need to express itself through music. 

The difference is the difference between 'Artificial intelligence' and 'Artificial consciousness'.   To achieve the former today would only require a collabortion between an average musicologist and an average computer programmer - we have no idea how to even begin doing the latter.


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@keithprosser
I had not even considered a computer that knows what music is only one that can create it. I don't know if we can make conciousness. I'm not sure what conciousness even is.
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@secularmerlin
Neither does anybody else!

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@keithprosser
Well that seems like rather a large stumbling block in the way of creating conciousness. To be honest I'm impressed with the idea of computers producing original music.

766 days later

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@secularmerlin
First made me think of a phone ad, then some other type of ad.
Seems like it could be a useful tool, even if currently simple.

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@Lemming
Computers seem to improve exponentially. Perhaps in our lifetime it will be something more than simple.
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@secularmerlin
It's rather impressive how much technology and science there is at the moment, more than we know what to do with, or more than we've properly integrated into our current society, I'd say.
And indeed, it 'does seem to be still building, growing.

608 days later

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@secularmerlin
What do you as a human think of this piece and indeed of the idea of computers producing original music?
His uncle, an engineer at Bell Labs, taught young Kurzweil the basics of computer science.[8] In 1963, at age 15, he wrote his first computer program.[9] He created pattern-recognition software that analyzed the works of classical composers, and then synthesized its own songs in similar styles. In 1965, he was invited to appear on the CBS television program I've Got a Secret,[10] where he performed a piano piece that was composed by a computer he also had built.[11] Later that year, he won first prize in the International Science Fair for the invention;[12]
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I cant picture   (  A one hit wonder computer  )  

A computer would sell out.

The song/ tune does sound boring and basic.    

The computer sounds bug free .
One can't help but feel a Computer on"  bugs" would be more out there and cool sounding.   
 




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@secularmerlin
There is not no composer. The computer composed and if anything, the programmer composed it by giving the computer essentially everything it could have used to compose, including liberties.
 
If you just put a bunch of bells outside a very busy marketplace and put a sign that people can play it no matter what time it is and record their sequence and just post that sequence online, there is not one composer for this piece of music.


zedvictor4
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Deconstruct Music.

And you simply have a sequence of variable sounds.

Which may or may not inspire a positive internal reaction from a sentient receiver.


So, I firmly accept the idea that Alternative Intelligence could  become dominant.

But whether or not A.I. would process, interpret  and respond to composed sound in the same way that humans do, is a question for Mr Spock.


7 days later

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@zedvictor4
We would need to define "music". From what music fundamentally is, if it was that simple, then a telephone dial-up motem handshake sound effect is music.

And the truth is as simple as that, but no, not that. Music is whatever people say it is. If people don't enjoy it, it is not music. Sure, there might be relatively-cracked weirdos that dig nothing other than sounds like the dial-up motem handshake, but music to one's ears is noise to one else. Maybe we need more than special cases to consider what is music or not.

But then we devolve into simple populism and divided democracy and huge amounts of things placed in the grey area which would spark debates all day long about what is music and what isn't. Should we let the record companies decide?
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Yes, an AI can technically generate melodies. In fact, you don't even need AI. Just pull a code that can make the robot output random notes with random lengths in an array of possible notes and lengths, you get entry-level Jazz or whatever that is and it would not repeat until you get extremely lucky.

But if we want to make all sorts of music on AI, we would first need to write code that mimics the human brain, or how is this, let people test on it and say what genre this is?
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@Intelligence_06
OK.

But as I see it A.I. is independent intelligence.

So to write a code to mimic, is to programme........And therefore, neither intelligent in it's own right, nor independent.


I was questioning whether a wholly independently evolved technological A.I. would regard variable sound waves as music either pleasant or unpleasant, or just as another electronic signal to be logically interpreted.


And music to ones ears is sound, which we then convert to noise.....Which for sure, we may or may not regard as music.

Nonetheless, a humans basic appreciation of musical sound, is no more or less this process.

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@zedvictor4
I was questioning whether a wholly independently evolved technological A.I. would regard variable sound waves as music either pleasant or unpleasant, or just as another electronic signal to be logically interpreted.
That would induce logical errors, not run-time errors. The code can run, but not in the way it is supposed to. I would think that an AI who is insanely good at mimicking some noises can be, I don't know, repurposed? Either way, we can use machine learning and generations to just make the code generate more sounds that sound like music and less that sounds like non-music.

But checking and evaluating whether each sound is music or not still need code or AI, or it takes huge amounts of cultured people from all cultures to determine what this is. You would have seconds from a machine generating a soundwave, and days of asking people and collecting data regarding whether this is music or not, and what genre if it is music.

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@Intelligence_06
Are we not programmed?



Reasonably so I suppose, but you are still finding it difficult to separate the human from the Alternative Intelligence.

I'm pretty sure that eventually Another Intelligence, wholly independent of it's initiators, will evolve.


As for reproducing/mimicking sounds, I would suggest that independent organic organisms do just that.

Essentially inputting, assessing and outputting data, utilising an onboard electrochemically powered organic computer, to recreate and output sound.

Not a million miles away from an onboard electrically/chemically powered inorganic/hybrid computer doing the same.


The future is out there, and can only be guessed at.


And complexities of sound which we are subject to/input, and might or might not decide to regard as music or music  of a certain genre, are just  evolved  and established variable data analysis programmes.

Variable by of virtue of species evolution, though technological globalisation has resulted in a more eclectic appreciation of sound as music.