I recently watched a TED Talk by Pierre Barreau, a computer scientist who created the Artificial Intelligence Visual Assistant (AIVA). According to Barreau, the goal of AIVA is to one day create a personalized soundtrack based on people’s life story. So far, AIVA has been able to study past scores written by classical musicians in order to create one itself. I’m not the biggest fan of classical music but as someone who is interested in computer science and artificial intelligence, this idea was intriguing to me.
However, there is one factor that might inhibit the success of the visual assistant. Personally, I believe that aside skill, one of the most significant reasons classical artists like Beethoven were successful is their humanity. The emotion behind a score is not one that can be easily imitated by technology. Although AIVA is a creative idea, I don’t think the ultimate goal will be achieved mainly because in order to compose a score that contains the journey and struggle or joy of one’s life, there needs to be some form of humanity that can relate to the individual.
Do you see success with visual assistants like AIVA?
