Research Shows AI Music ‘Is Inferior’

The advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) over the last few years have been groundbreaking, if not a little bit daunting to those who are worried it could overtake creative industries in the future. 

However, recent research has shown that music players and composers need not worry about AI just yet, as its music is deemed inferior to human-composed pieces. 

The University of York asked listeners to rate pieces for their stylistic success, aesthetic pleasure, repetition or self-reference, melody, harmony and rhythm. 

Without knowing whether they were listening to computer-generated music or not, they gave the pieces composed by humans much better scores.

Dr Tom Collins from the School of Arts and Creative Technologies at the university said: “On analysis, the ratings for human-composed excerpts are significantly higher and stylistically more successful than those for any of the systems responsible for computer-generated excerpts.”

There are also other problems with AI music, including the fact the algorithms may copy music in the input data by another artist, which would, therefore, infringe on copyright. 

This shows computer-generated music cannot be produced commercially at the moment, as the production of these algorithms are not currently policed. 

Therefore, we still need - and enjoy - the brilliance of human thought, feeling and skill when it comes to producing the highest standard of music. 

The same is true for playing music, so don’t let the talk about AI put you off learning an instrument. 

There are many instruments to try, but a banjo guitar is a good investment when you are first learning to play music.