Artificial intelligence could become new music star

An entire album has already been made with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), something unprecedented. It is “I am AI”, which would be translated as “I am AI”, by YouTube star Taryn Southern, who does not know how to play any instrument. “For my first song, I had a lot of difficulties: I wrote the lyrics, I had the melody, but it was difficult to compose the music”, explained the artist in a panel at SXSW, which ended last Sunday.

The pop artist explained that she began experimenting with AI two years ago, working with Amper, a music composition program. “In two days I had written a song that I truly felt was mine,” she said. “I don’t necessarily depend on other people.”

Created in 2014 in New York by a group of engineers and musicians, Amper is part of a dozen start-ups that use artificial intelligence to disrupt the traditional way of making music. Company founder and CEO Drew Silverstein said the goal is not to replace human composers, but to help them achieve their goals.
Silverstein said the program relies on tons of material — from dance music to classical music — to produce personalized songs. “The idea of Amper is to allow everyone to express themselves through music, regardless of their background and abilities,” he said.

Using a very simple interface, the application allows the user to choose the musical genre (rap, folklore, rock), an atmosphere (happy, sad, energetic) and the duration of the song. The user can then vary the times and instruments until obtaining a satisfactory result.

Two songs were created by Amper at SXSW: the audience chose pop and hip-hop as genres, and sweet and sad as ambiance. The tracks were pleasant enough to the ear and perfectly usable as background music to illustrate a video or a computer game. These songs were described by Amper as “functional music” and not as “art music”.

Jay Boisseau, a leader in computer technologies, predicts that in the future computers will generate more and more music, but that it is unlikely that the machine will completely replace the human touch. “Computers are not very creative,” he said. “They can find patterns, but they’re not like humans, they don’t go beyond what they’re trained to do.”

Lance Weiler agrees. The American filmmaker and writer, who uses AI in his work, said that collaboration between machines and artists should not be overlooked, but that it has limits. “It’s like interacting with a child,” he joked. “It can be very temperamental, and you need to set standards so it doesn’t get hurt.”

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