The resulting track, Nuns in a Moshpit, is a tour de force of AI production techniques. Even then, the duo needed to “dig through hundreds of variations to find the ones that fit best” before arranging the parts in a traditional DAW.

Each musical idea required selecting, training and ‘tuning’ a neural network to consistently generate musical textures in a fitting style. DADABOTS’ approach to AI music is both labour intensive and creatively demanding: speaking of their recent entry to the annual AI Song Contest, the pair told us that they “treated the AI models like they were session musicians, directed by our imagination”. Since 2017, duo Zack Zukowski and CJ Carr have been training neural networks on a heady mix of math rock, black metal, and punk in order to generate inhuman riffs, screams that no lungs could muster, and endless rhythmic complexity. If all that sounds both very nerdy and decidedly un-rock ’n’ roll, let me introduce you to DADABOTS. These in turn power deep learning algorithms which pass an input, in this case audio, through sequential network layers, progressively extracting more information with each step. Various approaches are being taken to reach a diverse set of goals, but one thing many of the most innovative projects have in common is their use of artificial neural networks – computer systems whose architecture is inspired by the human brain. Here we’re talking to some of the artists and developers who are harnessing the creative potential of AI to make new sounds, new musical forms, and new ways of working. So, are composers and songwriters staring into the void of their own obsolescence? There’s certainly some justified anxiety about what these tools will mean for the industry at large, however, for many artists, AI is not a threat but an opportunity – a new instrument that could usher in a musical renaissance comparable to the advent of 1980s sampling culture.

Tech’s best and brightest are hard at work trying to streamline the songwriting process or replace it altogether: Splice’s Similar Sounds uses AI to scan thousands of samples before offering the best kick to complement your snare Orb’s Producer Suite generates rhythms, melodies and chord progressions to help you get started on a track and services like Amper need only a few keywords to create fully realised background music. READ MORE: Anna Lunoe: “When I’m structuring a track, I get a cup of tea, put it on, and dance”įrom law enforcement to medicine and visual arts to weaponry, the real-world impacts of AI are already being felt.While we have yet to achieve a post-scarcity utopia or descend into a robot-ruled wasteland, year upon year, little by little, many of those predictions have jumped from the pages of sci-fi novels and into news headlines as ever-increasing computing power turns future fantasies into tangible reality. As far back as the 19th century, soothsayers have been promising and warning against it in equal measure. Nothing captures the popular imagination quite like artificial intelligence.

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