Artful Machines
“Aaron” can paint works of art for you. It’s just that Aaron is not a person. And this haiku isn’t by a person either:
Sashay down the page
through the lioness
nestled in my soul.
Both art and poetry were created by machines—artful machines. Add to that list, “Emily Howell,” a computer program that writes modern—and sometimes haunting—orchestral music. You can read more about her development and her designer, David Cope, in this solid article from Miller-McCune.com and author Ryan Blitstein. I, for one, have been put off most A.I. generated music. It’s always felt stilted or overly repetitious, or just too close to noise. “Emily Howell” is different. The two examples you can listen to in the article are really quite different. And for piano solos, they are uncharacteristically nuanced for a machine.