Project Title: Is Artificial Intelligence Music Taking Over? Mapping the Future Relationship between Musicians and AI
BASIS Advisor: Raul Rivera Pun
Internship Location: NYU
Onsite Mentor: Dr. Jean-Claude
Structural unemployment has always been problematic. Representing people who were fired due to their ability being no longer useful, it is difficult for them to get back to work because this commonly means they have to adopt a new ability. This has been the case for numerous jobs, such as human calculators and computers. Seeing the rise of artificial intelligence in the music industry, I am curious at whether in the future AI will continue to assist musicians or render them obsolete. In my senior research project, I will be attempting to answer this question by analyzing current research on Artificial Intelligence music software/hardware and connecting with experts within this area. For my research project, I am working remotely with Dr. Jean-Claude Franchitti of New York University. Dr. Franchitti focuses on research in the fields of artificial intelligence and cloud computing, and I am working with him and his teaching assistant on my research about the degree of independence of emerging AI music-making software and their potential impact on (human) musicians.
My first method of research is through running and analyzing MIDI databases and algorithms that contribute to AI composition software under development. Another important way that I will gather information is through conducting interviews with experts in this field of research. I expect to obtain a greater understanding of the fundamental workings of current artificial intelligence composition software and make predictions on how future AI music software might change the music industry. As a music maker with a keen interest in the relationship between machine learning technologies and related jobs, this research project is particularly intriguing to me, since I am eager to find out what could be the future of the music industry. Predicting future changes and impacts of AI music software could potentially answer the question of whether AI will help or harm musicians in the future, which is the main significance of my project.
My Posts
Week 10 – That’s Gone Well!
Greetings! Welcome to my final blog post! This week I have been working on my presentation and final deliverable, which will contain a report/short paper on my research and some tunes made by EarSketch. As a closer, in this blog I will answer my research question: will artificial intelligence music software continue to assist musicians, […]
Week 9 – Case Study: EarSketch
What’s good everybody! This is Peter Li back in this again – Welcome to my penultimate blog post! My main activity this week was to finish the final piece of research that I will include in this project, which is a case study of a website called EarSketch (earsketch.gatech.edu). I was interested in testing it […]
Week 8 – Slight Change of Course
Hi again! Peter Li here. It’s astonishing how time passes this fast… I (and I assume a lot of us) have arrived at the final parts of my internship and project! To be honest, this week saw less activity than the previous weeks because I had to participate in a series of chamber music rehearsals […]
Week 6&7 – The Interview
Long time no see guys! Since it has been 2 weeks from my previous post, today’s update will be a bit longer than usual. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I conducted a virtual “interview” with Emeritus Professor Roger B. Dannenberg of Carnegie Mellon University. Thus, I will dedicate most of this post […]
Week 5 – Interview Prep
Hello again! Welcome to my fifth blog post! As always, I hope everyone’s doing great. Compared to the last few weeks this week has been pretty slow… However, as I said in my blog post from last week, I have started another important component of my senior project, which is interviews! I was advised to […]
Week 4 – Getting Theoretical?
What’s good everyone! My name is Peter Li and welcome to my fourth blog! I can’t believe it has been almost a month since the start!! I have been continuing the first part of my project by expanding my research into the algorithms and papers by ByteDance’s GiantMIDI development team. As I mentioned last week, […]
Week 3 – More Codin’, More Readin’
Hi everyone, hope you all are doing well! This is Peter Li back with another blog! 🙂 This week has been mainly a continuation of what I did in week 2. For starters, I met with my project advisor Dr. Franchitti and his TA this week. As I mentioned in week 1’s blog post, Dr. […]
Week 2 – GiantMIDI – Intro
Greetings everyone! I’m Peter Li and welcome to my second blog! Here are some updates on what happened this week and what I hope to accomplish next. I started my research process by entering the world of GiantMIDI, a project developed by the technology company ByteDance. Founded in 2012, it is now one of the […]
Week 1 – Welcome!
Hello everyone! I am Peter Li. Welcome to my first senior project blog! For my research project, I am working remotely with Dr. Jean-Claude Franchitti of New York University. Dr. Franchitti focuses on research in the fields of artificial intelligence and cloud computing, and I am working with him on my research about the degree […]