Insight certainty 3/5 debate potential 2/5

Eck: AI will automate routine music creation, pushing artists toward new complexity

Doug Eck · Making Music and Art Through Machine Learning - Doug Eck of Magenta · Y Combinator · Jul 21, 2017 · at 37:57

Doug Eck, research scientist leading Google's Project Magenta, discusses whether generative AI will eventually produce the ultimate formulaic pop music.

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“Like some things that used to be hard will be easy. And so, We'll offload all of that. And if people are happy just listening to the stuff that's now easy, then yeah, it's a problem solved and we'll be able to generate lots of it. But then what people tend to do is go look for something else hard, right?”

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Opinion
Eck: Alex Graves advanced LSTMs more than anyone, including its creator
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Doug Eck Jul 21, 2017 ▶ 17:39 Making Music and Art Through Machine Learning - Doug Eck of Magenta · Y Combinator
Assertion Supported
Eck: Untrained listeners rated Magenta compositions as more Bach-like than Bach
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Doug Eck Jul 21, 2017 ▶ 22:14 Making Music and Art Through Machine Learning - Doug Eck of Magenta · Y Combinator
Assertion Supported
Eck: As of 2017, AI cannot generate a single coherent text paragraph
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Doug Eck Jul 21, 2017 ▶ 25:51 Making Music and Art Through Machine Learning - Doug Eck of Magenta · Y Combinator
Disclosure
Eck: Magenta aims to build creative tools, not act as artists
“The reason that I put that quote there, I think, is to be honest with the division between engineering and research and artistry, and to not think that what I'm doing is being a machine learning artist, but we're trying to build interesting ways to make new ki…”
Doug Eck Jul 21, 2017 ▶ 1:20 Making Music and Art Through Machine Learning - Doug Eck of Magenta · Y Combinator
Insight
Eck: Users' first instinct with AI art models is breaking them
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Doug Eck Jul 21, 2017 ▶ 2:03 Making Music and Art Through Machine Learning - Doug Eck of Magenta · Y Combinator
Opinion
Eck: Magenta's generated AI music is not yet good enough for testing
“I, at least for Magenta, I haven't felt like the quality of what we've been generating has been good enough to bother, so to speak. Like you find it, you cherry pick, you find some good things, you're like, okay, this model trains, and it's interesting, and no…”
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