Are we solving the wrong problems – and doing harm in the process?

https://aimc2023.pubpub.org/pub/vjk7vtco

How valuable really is the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to music? Other than publications and entertaining media content, what good does it bring? Does the world need efficient algorithms for generating “music” of questionable quality that nobody will ever listen to? Are there any tangible benefits to building systems that (almost) no one will use?

This brief paper examines some of these questions by considering a specific line of research applying AI to music. In answer to the questions posed above, we discuss how considerations of purpose and value should always lie at the heart of our research endeavors. Furthermore, we argue that programming computers to generate music can be a way to engage with deeper questions about methodologies of working with the datafication of cultural expressions.

This provocation has been mainly written by and from the perspective of the first and second authors. At Alt- AIMC, we plan to present this provocation as an agonistic dialogue that gives significantly more voice to the third author, whose views may differ from what is expressed here.