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How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Music
mbone writes "Ever wonder how Jimi Hendrix would cover Lady Gaga? Whether you do or not [I'm guessing not], you may be about to find out. Writing for Wired, Eliot Van Buskirk describes North Carolina's Zenph Sound Innovations, which takes existing recordings of musicians (deceased, for now) and models their 'musical personalities' to create new recordings, apparently to critical acclaim (PDF). The company has raised $10.7 million in funding to pursue their business plan, and hopes to branch out into, among other things, software that would let musicians jam with virtual versions of famous musicians. This work unites music with the very similar trend going on in the movies — Tron 2.0, for example, will clone the young Jeff Bridges. If this goes on, will the major labels and studios actually need musicians and actors? In the future, it could be harder to make money playing guitar with all of the competition from dead or retired artists."
As cool as this tech is.. Imagine hearing how Hendrix would approach covering the likes of Zeppelin, Rush, or hell even Stanley Jordan?
But what seems like a bad deal to me is the concept of extending copyright to 'style'. Does this mean that eventually any talented kid who manages to figure out (AKA, reverse engineer) Clapton's or Lifeson's style and sound perfectly, would be in violation of a copyright?
So much for paying homage to your inspirations....
Huh?
I think it will be interesting when an estate tries to sue someone for producing something "in the style of" a particular dead artist. It'll totally be worth it if it gets rid of the Nickleback derivatives.
What was that? When has a CG character ever been introduced in a live action movie? I don't know, maybe you can tell us, Jar Jar.
And yet the very CG character of Gollum in LotRs won critical acclaim (and rightfully so). And some movies have touched up actors to make them look younger so the movie can cover a larger time frame and make it look more natural. Our issue here, of course, is that there is no need for Jeff Bridges and it will be his image used in the movie. And I think some folks find that disgusting on the same level as Fred Astair hawking Dirt Devils and John Wayne slugging Coors Lights. Some folks might find it fun. Some folks might see it as a tribute. And others might say "Don't worry about it, after the generation that loves him is gone they won't be used in movies anymore." And maybe they're all correct in some way. But I believe Paul Newman didn't agree with it and made a clause in his will that it should not happen to his image. And good for him. I prefer my Paul Newman vintage Cool Hand Luke to remain vintage and I'd rather not suffer through Cool Hand Luke 2: Cooler Hander Luke, Cool Hand Luke 3: Luke's Mom's Revenge, Cool Hand Luke 4: Twenty Seven Eggs Later, etc.
My work here is dung.
I don't recall the who it was, but I once heard an interview where a musician mentioned being sued by the company that bought the rights to their past songs for their new songs being too close in style to their old material. I think musician said he won the suit.
An interesting little question:
Lets say you create an original and creative work.
I make a program which parses it and uses it to create a new work.
Is this a derivative work?
what if I use as input all your creative work in aggregate and not just one piece?
has the programmer done anything creating the tool making it's output his or does it all belong to the creator of the inputs?
do you have any rights to the output of the mathematical function that is my program?
Now a few years ago I would have just read the word "AI" and sort of mentally fitted a "magic creative box" labeled over it and accepted that the products of an AI could be .. well intelligent.
Now I wonder more about the nature of creativity, design, strategy, etc....
We like to assume that machines are nothing more than math engines but we also like to assume that we ourselves are not subject to the same rules.
I remember trying to explain to someone who had recently learned about the halting problem that we ourselves are just as subject to its implications as any perl script.
Ok I've gone into random musing here...
Yeah, there's some real questions in there. I am going to guess you've read Hofstadter's GEB, from the sounds of it. If you haven't, you really should.
My opinion on the matter is that both the AI's author and the original composer are doing creative work. The degree to which "credit" would be assigned to either depends on a lot of factors. Near one extreme we have a record player, which does alter the original work ever so slightly. While we appreciate record player, we don't generally credit it for its contribution to the original work. What about an EQ setup, though? Or a dynamic sonic maximizer? Or a person who does a remix? Or the AI you describe... how different from the original is its output? Since musical notions were invented long before any musician we've heard of, should we consider modern musicians highly developed systems for taking musical input (their influences) and producing new derivative works? I would argue "yes", though a musician can seem strikingly original even with all the influences going in.
I tend to think we are more than just math engines. On our lowest level that might be it, but the brain doesn't make sense if you just look at neurons. Math is an amazing modeling system, but it is not complete. Our brains (at the higher levels) are multi-paradigm -- we may use math when it works but will find other more approximate modeling systems when it doesn't. I would grant that a complex enough AI could do the same thing. But we're not there yet. Not even close.
I guess random musings are contagious :)