People want and need other people around, doing human things. Even if the musical output was impressive, I can't think of people developing a deep relationship with it outside of novelty. Algorithms are cold, and music is usually very much the opposite - I can see an "uncanny valley" effect cropping up with the imitative forms: people hearing something that is supposed to come across as laden with emotion, instead leads people to revulsion. What do we get out of computers composing songs that are supposed to relate to the fragility of the human condition?
Sure, the algorithms, once sufficiently advanced, could probably trick us into thinking that certain examples of generative music were made by a person and then later reveal its algorithmic origin to prove that "the humans are stupid" and "the google algorithms are clever" but what are we actually proving here?
Can a computer devise new artistic forms that have some genuine impact on people - can a computer come up with Bacon's Triptych of George Dyer outside of regurgitating fragments of what it already has seen? What do we get out of a computer aping the alcohol-fuelled sweaty anarchic performances of The Black Lips?
The interesting stuff will be to see if this goes to other places that music has not yet gone - some new composition method - manipulation of frequency in ways that humans have not yet devised.
Sure, the algorithms, once sufficiently advanced, could probably trick us into thinking that certain examples of generative music were made by a person and then later reveal its algorithmic origin to prove that "the humans are stupid" and "the google algorithms are clever" but what are we actually proving here?
Can a computer devise new artistic forms that have some genuine impact on people - can a computer come up with Bacon's Triptych of George Dyer outside of regurgitating fragments of what it already has seen? What do we get out of a computer aping the alcohol-fuelled sweaty anarchic performances of The Black Lips?
The interesting stuff will be to see if this goes to other places that music has not yet gone - some new composition method - manipulation of frequency in ways that humans have not yet devised.