Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Triumph of the Cyborg Composer

Posted by samzenpus on from the musician-vs-machine dept.

An anonymous reader writes "UC Santa Cruz emeritus professor David Cope's software, nicknamed Emmy, creates beautiful original music. So why are people so angry about that? From the article: 'Cope attracted praise from musicians and computer scientists, but his creation raised troubling questions: If a machine could write a Mozart sonata every bit as good as the originals, then what was so special about Mozart? And was there really any soul behind the great works, or were Beethoven and his ilk just clever mathematical manipulators of notes?'"

2 of 502 comments (clear)

  1. A quote by grithfang · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Four-hundred years ago, on the planet Earth, workers who felt their livelihood threatened by automation, flung their wooden shoes, called sabo, into the machines to stop them . . . hence the word: sabotage. - Lt. Valeris, Star Trek VI.

    People are always threatened when they feel they can be replaced by automation. Do I get bonus points for quoting Trek?

  2. Not scared yet by Crayola · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's nothing "mere" about the mathematics of music or the fractal beauty of the shape of landscapes or the sound of the great outdoors. Humans are wired to appreciate all that, and it's the patterns at their core that both make them appealing and tractable to generate artificially.

    A computer program that can generate music doesn't scare me.

    A program that can enjoy music ...