The musical parts from classical composers such as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are regarded by many as timeless pieces of art. Music can give people an indescribable feeling of happiness or help them to another emotional state. The question is whether robots in the future will be able to provide humans with the same experience through their own musical creations.
An interesting example of such developments is Shimon: a four-armed robot created in a lab of the Georgia Institute of Technology. For seven years, PhD student mason Bretan has been working with the robot, learning it to ‘listen’ to almost 5000 songs, from genres including classical and pop music. It uses deep-learning to form ”a more structured and coherent composition”, according to Gil Weinberg, who is the original creator of Shimon.
I cannot help to be skeptical when thinking about a future where robots will create musical pieces. Although I am not in doubt that with the current technological capabilities these robots will be able to create decent music (it will always be subject to opinion), I think the human factor cannot be underestimated in how music is experienced. Part of listening to music in groups is a shared opinion about it and the mind(s) behind it. Can music that is created by a robot still be regarded as a form of art or is it by definition just a form of human creation? While we as humans are currently experimenting with the applications of robots on practically all aspects that can theoretically be substituted by robots, in my opinion there is not much utility in having robots making our music.
That being said, the reason I feel this way could be caused by the fact that robots have not yet created musical compositions that can be considered masterpieces. Since we do not know what the future still has to offer, the next ‘Beethoven’ might in fact be a robot.
Sources:
Maderer, J. (2017) Robot uses deep learning and big data to write and play its own music. Georgia Tech. [online] Available at: https://www.news.gatech.edu/2017/06/13/robot-uses-deep-learning-and-big-data-write-and-play-its-own-music [Accessed 14 Oct. 2018]
