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AI takes on Bach
CULTURE
Can artificial intelligence ever make music as wonderful as that of our greatest human composers? Simon Ings talks to the creative minds behind an experiment to find out
The Eternal Golden Braid: Gödel, Escher, Bach, with Marcus du Sautoy, Mahan Esfahani and Robert Thomas, Barbican, London, 9 March
CAN you tell when a piece of music has been written by a machine? Back in 1979, cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter was the first to ask that question in his classic book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid. Forty years on, I thought it was a rather tired question. Of course we cannot tell. Of course we can be fooled. Why worry? After all, no one stopped playing chess or Go when computers proved they could trounce the best players. If anything, the machines inspired people to play more, and better. Pitting yourself against a human adversary is the whole point of these games. And if the point of music is that it conveys emotion, it is only interesting if there is a human doing the conveying. A concert on 9 March should shake up my assumptions. London’s Barbican is bringing together harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, mathematician Marcus du Sautoy and composer Robert Thomas for a performance lecture – called The Eternal Golden Braid: Gödel, Escher, Bach – that uses an algorithm trained on the music of J. S. Bach. Bach’s compositions have been fed through a machine-learning process created by computational artist Parag K. Mital. It will use what it has learned to create its pieces. Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani will play music created by an AI 44 | NewScientist | 2 March 2019
The audience will listen to Contemporary Orchestra will also Esfahani playing a piece that work with the audience. But you interlaces real Bach with Bach will need to be there to find out generated by AI – and be asked to how it will work. look for the joins. When people “My feeling is that people find think they have spotted one, they themselves stuck in a particular can flip a card that is a different way of doing things, and that’s colour on each side. They will also “ As we search for new listen to new pieces by Thomas musical territories, must and another AI-savvy composer we confront ever stranger Robert Laidlow. sound worlds?” The point isn’t to fool anyone into misattributing music created by AI to a composer regarded by when we start behaving like many as the greatest who ever machines,” says du Sautoy. “My lived. Instead, audience responses hope is that artificial intelligence will be used to create new music may free us from behaving that explores Bach’s sound world mechanically, by showing us and vocabulary. that there are new places to go.” Musicians from the London He cites the work of computer
MARK ALLAN/BARBICAN
AI takes on Bach
scientist François Pachet, director of the Spotify Creator Technology Research Lab. His Flow Machine program jams with jazz musicians in real time, leading them into improvisations that feel natural – and rightly so, since they are derived from a deep learning of the musicians’ output. How does Esfahani feel about such technology? I expected him to be either enthused or threatened. I didn’t think he would regard it as business as usual. “Every innovation has unintended consequences,” he says. “But these include positive consequences.” For Esfahani, the world of classical and contemporary music is anything but a stable environment – it has been in a state of reinvention for centuries. “From Mozart’s birth in 1756 to Schubert’s death in 1828 is no more than a single lifespan,” he says. “Yet in that one generation, the instruments of the orchestra became unrecognisable – sometimes literally so.” It is true that AI threatens to decentre much of human life,
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Visit Craft & Graft: Making science happen, an exhibition (pictured) at the Francis Crick Institute in London, will take visitors behind the scenes to see what is needed to support the research carried out there, including the thousands of flasks and test tubes that need cleaning. From 1 March.
Watch H is for Harry is in some UK cinemas for World Book Day on 7 March. It is a powerful coming-of-age film about the state of education in the UK. A key claim is that one in five English 11-year-olds can’t read well.
Play Vectronom, a hypnotic video game about music, geometry and being in the moment, lands on Steam this month and seals the reputation of developers Ludopium for combining edgy music, art and experimentation.
Listen Particle physicists John Womersley and Harry Cliff will talk about The Next Mega-Collider at London’s Royal Institution at 7pm GMT on 7 March. The Future Circular Collider would be many times more powerful than CERN’s current collider, the LHC.
THE FRANCIS CRICK INSTITUTE
Dangerous light
Read
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but this continuing reinvention of music means it is relatively safe. Feelings will run high, though. In the 19th century, for example, the German composer Richard Wagner caused great outrage with his radical style. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche went as far as to say: “He contaminates everything he touches – he has made music sick.” In fact, Wagner exploited and exhausted contemporary harmonic and chromatic possibilities to the point where, at the turn of the 20th century, younger composers had no choice but to abandon tonal music in a search for a Physicist Jim Al-Khalili reveals why he wanted sound of their own. Will the algorithm used during his first novel to be true to science the upcoming concert reveal compositions that are easier to been weakening for decades. NEAR-future, science-fiction swallow? Or, as we search for new It is also long overdue a flip: territories, must we confront ever thrillers are what Hollywood when magnetic north and south does best, but the science can stranger sound worlds? poles switch. And it is possible, As a mathematician, du Sautoy often be flaky. I have never though unlikely, that Earth’s got angry about that: the key thinks he has an answer. “When magnetic field will die one day – word is “fiction”, after all. I make the mathematics-music as Mars’s did billions of years ago. My enjoyment of the latest connection, people worry that The 2041 tech is what Marvel movies isn’t spoiled I’m taking the emotion out of New Scientist readers might when physics laws get broken. music and making it very cold, expect: quantum computing, My preference, however, is clinical and logical,” he says. AI, minds controlling cities, for sci-fi to paint a picture of “What they don’t realise is that perovskite-crystal technology mathematics is highly emotional. what really could be. So I set my for solar power, and so on. first book, Sunfall, in 2041, far It’s a response to the play of As for the science of dark enough from today that tech extraordinary, surprising matter, it is possible that it is based on current developments patterns. I get the same buzz made up of as-yet-undiscovered will have been realised, but not reading mathematics as I do elementary particles called when I’m listening to Bach.” Sunfall is meant to be neutralinos. And while I Music isn’t an arbitrary jumble “ overstress the importance of notes. It is iterative, generative, a page-turner: a fastpaced, race-against-time of dark matter self-interacting algorithmic. Music can be easy techno-thriller” in the book, the physics on and banal, just as mathematics neutralino decay and the role can be, and for the same reason: so far that my predictions of the bending magnets in structurally, easy music isn’t lose reliability. Over the past sending dark matter beams particularly interesting. seven years, I have interviewed to Earth’s core is possible. For both mathematics and 200 of the most brilliant But in the end, Sunfall is music, the point isn’t to hunt scientific minds in their field, meant to be a page-turner: a fastfor novelty for novelty’s sake, which has imbued me with paced, race-against-time technobut to look for results that are a broad understanding of thriller. I have enjoyed building interesting and surprising, and where the world is heading. a “could be” world and found it that lead to further discoveries. The book’s premise is that tremendously satisfying that the Such results are always rare, science is correct. I hope people and the limits of human cognition Earth’s magnetic field is dying, leaving us vulnerable to the sun’s find it a great story too. ■ set a hard barrier beyond which radiation. It isn’t an original idea, the search becomes pointless. By Jim Al-Khalili presents The Life applying AI and machine learning but it is something that could Scientific on BBC Radio 4. Sunfall happen. We know, for instance, to the problem, beautiful (Bantam Press) is out on 18 April that the magnetic field has surprises may await us. ■
2 March 2019 | NewScientist | 45
Can artificial intelligence ever make music as wonderful as that of our greatest human composers? Simon Ings talks to the creative minds behind an experiment to find out
The Eternal Golden Braid: Gödel, Escher, Bach, with Marcus du Sautoy, Mahan Esfahani and Robert Thomas, Barbican, London, 9 March
CAN you tell when a piece of music has been written by a machine? Back in 1979, cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter was the first to ask that question in his classic book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid. Forty years on, I thought it was a rather tired question. Of course we cannot tell. Of course we can be fooled. Why worry? After all, no one stopped playing chess or Go when computers proved they could trounce the best players. If anything, the machines inspired people to play more, and better. Pitting yourself against a human adversary is the whole point of these games. And if the point of music is that it conveys emotion, it is only interesting if there is a human doing the conveying. A concert on 9 March should shake up my assumptions. London’s Barbican is bringing together harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, mathematician Marcus du Sautoy and composer Robert Thomas for a performance lecture – called The Eternal Golden Braid: Gödel, Escher, Bach – that uses an algorithm trained on the music of J. S. Bach. Bach’s compositions have been fed through a machine-learning process created by computational artist Parag K. Mital. It will use what it has learned to create its pieces. Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani will play music created by an AI 44 | NewScientist | 2 March 2019
The audience will listen to Contemporary Orchestra will also Esfahani playing a piece that work with the audience. But you interlaces real Bach with Bach will need to be there to find out generated by AI – and be asked to how it will work. look for the joins. When people “My feeling is that people find think they have spotted one, they themselves stuck in a particular can flip a card that is a different way of doing things, and that’s colour on each side. They will also “ As we search for new listen to new pieces by Thomas musical territories, must and another AI-savvy composer we confront ever stranger Robert Laidlow. sound worlds?” The point isn’t to fool anyone into misattributing music created by AI to a composer regarded by when we start behaving like many as the greatest who ever machines,” says du Sautoy. “My lived. Instead, audience responses hope is that artificial intelligence will be used to create new music may free us from behaving that explores Bach’s sound world mechanically, by showing us and vocabulary. that there are new places to go.” Musicians from the London He cites the work of computer
MARK ALLAN/BARBICAN
AI takes on Bach
scientist François Pachet, director of the Spotify Creator Technology Research Lab. His Flow Machine program jams with jazz musicians in real time, leading them into improvisations that feel natural – and rightly so, since they are derived from a deep learning of the musicians’ output. How does Esfahani feel about such technology? I expected him to be either enthused or threatened. I didn’t think he would regard it as business as usual. “Every innovation has unintended consequences,” he says. “But these include positive consequences.” For Esfahani, the world of classical and contemporary music is anything but a stable environment – it has been in a state of reinvention for centuries. “From Mozart’s birth in 1756 to Schubert’s death in 1828 is no more than a single lifespan,” he says. “Yet in that one generation, the instruments of the orchestra became unrecognisable – sometimes literally so.” It is true that AI threatens to decentre much of human life,
DON’T MISS
For more books and arts coverage, visit newscientist.com/culture
Dieter Helm’s Green and Prosperous Land: A blueprint for rescuing the British countryside (William Collins) delivers handsomely on the promise in its title.
Visit Craft & Graft: Making science happen, an exhibition (pictured) at the Francis Crick Institute in London, will take visitors behind the scenes to see what is needed to support the research carried out there, including the thousands of flasks and test tubes that need cleaning. From 1 March.
Watch H is for Harry is in some UK cinemas for World Book Day on 7 March. It is a powerful coming-of-age film about the state of education in the UK. A key claim is that one in five English 11-year-olds can’t read well.
Play Vectronom, a hypnotic video game about music, geometry and being in the moment, lands on Steam this month and seals the reputation of developers Ludopium for combining edgy music, art and experimentation.
Listen Particle physicists John Womersley and Harry Cliff will talk about The Next Mega-Collider at London’s Royal Institution at 7pm GMT on 7 March. The Future Circular Collider would be many times more powerful than CERN’s current collider, the LHC.
THE FRANCIS CRICK INSTITUTE
Dangerous light
Read
GETTY
but this continuing reinvention of music means it is relatively safe. Feelings will run high, though. In the 19th century, for example, the German composer Richard Wagner caused great outrage with his radical style. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche went as far as to say: “He contaminates everything he touches – he has made music sick.” In fact, Wagner exploited and exhausted contemporary harmonic and chromatic possibilities to the point where, at the turn of the 20th century, younger composers had no choice but to abandon tonal music in a search for a Physicist Jim Al-Khalili reveals why he wanted sound of their own. Will the algorithm used during his first novel to be true to science the upcoming concert reveal compositions that are easier to been weakening for decades. NEAR-future, science-fiction swallow? Or, as we search for new It is also long overdue a flip: territories, must we confront ever thrillers are what Hollywood when magnetic north and south does best, but the science can stranger sound worlds? poles switch. And it is possible, As a mathematician, du Sautoy often be flaky. I have never though unlikely, that Earth’s got angry about that: the key thinks he has an answer. “When magnetic field will die one day – word is “fiction”, after all. I make the mathematics-music as Mars’s did billions of years ago. My enjoyment of the latest connection, people worry that The 2041 tech is what Marvel movies isn’t spoiled I’m taking the emotion out of New Scientist readers might when physics laws get broken. music and making it very cold, expect: quantum computing, My preference, however, is clinical and logical,” he says. AI, minds controlling cities, for sci-fi to paint a picture of “What they don’t realise is that perovskite-crystal technology mathematics is highly emotional. what really could be. So I set my for solar power, and so on. first book, Sunfall, in 2041, far It’s a response to the play of As for the science of dark enough from today that tech extraordinary, surprising matter, it is possible that it is based on current developments patterns. I get the same buzz made up of as-yet-undiscovered will have been realised, but not reading mathematics as I do elementary particles called when I’m listening to Bach.” Sunfall is meant to be neutralinos. And while I Music isn’t an arbitrary jumble “ overstress the importance of notes. It is iterative, generative, a page-turner: a fastpaced, race-against-time of dark matter self-interacting algorithmic. Music can be easy techno-thriller” in the book, the physics on and banal, just as mathematics neutralino decay and the role can be, and for the same reason: so far that my predictions of the bending magnets in structurally, easy music isn’t lose reliability. Over the past sending dark matter beams particularly interesting. seven years, I have interviewed to Earth’s core is possible. For both mathematics and 200 of the most brilliant But in the end, Sunfall is music, the point isn’t to hunt scientific minds in their field, meant to be a page-turner: a fastfor novelty for novelty’s sake, which has imbued me with paced, race-against-time technobut to look for results that are a broad understanding of thriller. I have enjoyed building interesting and surprising, and where the world is heading. a “could be” world and found it that lead to further discoveries. The book’s premise is that tremendously satisfying that the Such results are always rare, science is correct. I hope people and the limits of human cognition Earth’s magnetic field is dying, leaving us vulnerable to the sun’s find it a great story too. ■ set a hard barrier beyond which radiation. It isn’t an original idea, the search becomes pointless. By Jim Al-Khalili presents The Life applying AI and machine learning but it is something that could Scientific on BBC Radio 4. Sunfall happen. We know, for instance, to the problem, beautiful (Bantam Press) is out on 18 April that the magnetic field has surprises may await us. ■
2 March 2019 | NewScientist | 45