Musicking with Algorithms: Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence, Creativity, and Agency

Book chapter, 2021

In this chapter, I present a pragmatic, critical, and sometimes speculative view of what Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) bring to the table for art and music. It is pragmatic in the sense of analyzing what can actually be done today by musicians and composers working with AI, and what is missing in terms of creative agency. How does AI relate to other technologies in the context of art? Yet critical about the popular expectations of AI, its ascribed abilities and agency, and how AI is written and talked about today in terms of creativity. No, computers cannot paint like van Gogh or compose like Bach. What is really the role of humans, as designers, programmers, users, and tweakers, behind current AI applications? Still, I try to be visionary about the long-term future of AI in art and music. Will we ever see autonomous AI artists, composers, and musicians? If so, why would they even care to make art and music for humans?