Google’s Magenta artificial intelligence (AI) project produced a basic piano melody that was then given a drum machine background (apparently added by humans not an AI program) and released to the public:

Canadian media outlet The Star had four songwriters try to flesh out the melody into a full fledged song:

In this post, I’ll take a somewhat different approach in assessing this AI generated music–and perhaps surprisingly without focusing too much on the question of authorship.

The Magenta melody is presented as another step toward AI generation of creative expression. If that goal is achieved, the question is whether human expression will continue to flourish or whether it will be “outsourced” to algorithms. I don’t think anyone can really say at this point what would happen if/when the algorithms produce expression as good as, or perhaps even “better” than, what humans create. We’ll find out at such time as it might happen and such music starts entering the music ecosystem.

So for now, the practical question is whether this Magenta melody is “as good as” what humans produce. Or, more precisely, would the average person listening to this melody find it “musical” enough to satisfy at least one of the roles which music plays in their life, whether that be as foreground point of focus or background to another activity? The latter is probably the lower bar. Music that is pleasing or soothing or inspiring often serves as an almost subliminal part of many environments. And so long as the sequence of sounds is not jarring or disturbing, it may well suffice for that role. Grabbing our attention and provoking some emotive or intellectual response is a much higher bar. AI generated content may not need to meet that bar to still be deemed successful. In fact, the likely first areas in which AI music would be adopted would be these kinds of background or auxiliary roles (think elevators, waiting rooms, etc.).

I posit that the real challenge for even the low bar of background music is not in creating melodies or even whole musical passages that are coherent enough–in terms of sounding like music and avoiding dissonant sequences–but rather in creating music that flows naturally, especially in the sense of swinging or having a groove.

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