Introducation AI

Hello, I am Terry Ewell.

In this module, we will explore issues with the generation of music by Artificial Intelligence. To frame this discussion, let’s view two short clips from Star Trek, The Next Generation, which was originally broadcast on television on October 2, 1989. From these two short TV segments, you will observe that the AI generation of music and its consequences have been pondered for several decades.

The character named “Data” is an android with a positronic brain, which is what we might call today an AI brain. At the beginning of the episode, Data enters a room where a concert will take place. He talks to Captain Picard, the commander of the spaceship, and another colleague about his violin playing.

[First Segment, Star Trek, The Next Generation]

Data: Captain, Doctor, I am honored by your presence, but may I suggest you attend the second concert?

Doctor: Why, Data?

Data: Ensign Ortiz will perform the violin part. My rendition will be less enjoyable.

Captain: Oh?

Data: Although I am technically proficient, according to my fellow performers, I lack…soul.

Notice that the issues of the soul or feelings are brought up. Can machines, algorithms, or AI produce emotive music? Music produced by human effort seems to impart emotions. People producing the music and listening to it experience something more than noise. Some feelings are communicated.

This idea of whether AI-generated music can have emotions is further explored at the end of the TV episode.

[Second Segment, Star Trek, The Next Generation]

Data: As I have recently reminded others, sir, I have no feeling.

Captain: That’s hard to believe. Your playing is quite beautiful.

Data: Strictly speaking, sir, it is not my playing. It is a precise imitation of the techniques of Jascha Heifetz and Trenka Bron-ken.

Captain: Is there nothing of Data in what I’m hearing? You see, you chose the violinists. Heifetz and Bron-ken have radically different styles, different techniques, and yet you combine them successfully.

Data: I suppose I have learned to be creative, sir…

There are two principal ideas explored in this concluding episode that need to be considered. Captain Picard feels emotion in Data’s playing; however, Data has no emotions. Picard is emotionally moved by an android’s performance without Data’s emotions generating the music. How is this possible?

Well, Sherry Turkle's book, Alone Together (2011), brilliantly explores how people humanize robots, mechanical furry animals, or online AI. People become attached to these physical or digital objects in emotional ways. I explore this idea of emotional attachment in my article, “Machines that Fake It (2018).” This idea is also explored in movies. For example, a love affair between a lonely writer and an intelligent operating system is poignantly portrayed in the movie Her (2013). Today, you might even know someone having an online romance with an AI chatbot. That AI chatbot has no feelings but can elicit romantic attachment with the right words.

The second idea in the Star Trek episode is that creativity can be achieved by combining previous ideas, items, or techniques. Isn’t that what all of us do when we are creative? None of us produces totally original works. We all borrow elements from others. So, Captain Picard makes a good point that Data is demonstrating creativity by combining the techniques of real-life violinist Jascha Heifetz with those of the fictional Trenka Bron-Ken.

Discussions about creativity and AI, as well as the source of art, are at the forefront now and will remain so in the near future. For instance, U.S. courts have ruled that artistic products entirely produced by AI cannot be copyrighted. Copyrighted materials must have human authorship, even if it is only partial. So, in the USA, at least, it is human origin, not the creativity displayed in artistic work, that is copyrighted. Thus, Data’s performance on the violin could not receive copyright, but his human colleagues in the performance could.

In summary, these segments from a 1989 Star Trek episode raise critical issues related to emotional communication from AI sources, creativity with human and AI origins, and even copyright issues for AI.

References:

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. Basic Books, 2011.

Her. Directed by Spike Jonze, performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2013.

Ewell, Terry B. "Machines that Fake it." COFAC Scholar publication, 2019. https://terryewell.com/DronesDroids/machinesthatfakeit2.pdf.