“New ‘Ethical’ AI Music Generator Struggles to Strike the Right Chord”
“The New ‘Ethical’ AI Music Generator Can’t Write a Halfway Decent Song”
“Meet Namenlos, a deep learning model trained to compose music in a variety of styles. The model’s output isn’t bad—but at best, its songs sound like decent elevator music.”
Set your eyes and ears on Namenlos, the artificial intelligence that learned its ABCs in music and now attempts to create its classic tunes. Amen to all the techno-magicians who managed to create a machine that produces – let’s be kind and say – “palatable” tracks. With its graphing calculator brain and phony symphonies, Namenlos just about manages to muster up something vaguely comparable to the eternally looping soundtrack in your dentist’s waiting room – yep, you guessed it, good old elevator music.
Here’s a sobering thought: Namenlos, in all its silicone-infused glory, got its education from 1.2 million songs. Can you imagine? Over a million songs, and the best it can manage is the algorithmic equivalent of paint drying. Even after being injected with Beethoven, The Beatles, Beyonce, and every other artist you can dream up, it simmers down to a Producer that decided elevator music is the pinnacle of its capabilities.
But hey, let’s give credit where it’s due. Namenlos has been described as producing “varied” results, ranging from “forgettable” to “calming,” with a rare feather of “beautifully haunting” popping up once in a while. If that doesn’t prime your playlist, I don’t know what will.
There’s growing concern about the ethical implications of AI-generated music using pieces composed by actual humans. What about the rights of the original creators? Sure, let’s address this in all gravity. Are we genuinely worried that Namenlos might rob Beethoven of his thunder? That it might score a mega hit, leaving The Beatles’ legacy in its wake? Let’s be honest, it’s a bigger concern that Namenlos might bore the listeners to tears before it could be guilty of any plagiarism.
Now it’s common knowledge that Namenlos is just one of the numerous AIs strutting around the digital town, claiming they can do everything, from painting pictures to predicting weather. But let’s face facts: Saturday Night Fever won’t be moving with Namenlos’s groove anytime soon, and Starry Night doesn’t get any competition from its digital doodles.
While the technical achievement of training an AI to generate music is no joke, it’s clear our digital composers and artists have some serious tuning up to do. For now, it seems like the only danger they pose is to the alarm clock industry. Because let’s face it, who needs a snooze button when you’ve got AI-produced melatonin at your beck and call? One track of their “beautifully haunting” repertoire and it’s lights out.
But for anyone who prefers their music with a little soul and a dash of human imperfection, the audio industry need not worry. Namenlos and friends have shown us one thing: no machine can reproduce the heart, the passion, and the sheer roller coaster of life experiences that we pour into every note of our truly human music. The day an AI starts writing chart-toppers is the day when elevators become the preferred concert venues. Until then, happy listening!