Hello, for today's post, we were asked to scroll through the archives of old ABEL posts and find music that seemed interesting or that caught our attention. I found a blog titled Gorillas in the Mist from 2016. The point of the blog was to find brass players in unusual situations, like Gorillas in the Mist. One post I found was of Robots playing instruments. This peaked a class discussion because, as musicians we are terrified of losing our jobs to robots or to artificial intelligence. So today's theme is control, and the lack of it.
Here is the clip on Toyota's Robotic Orchestra. It features four Robots who are actually playing instruments, two trumpet players, a tuba player and a drummer. Although this is a short video, I encourage you to find more videos or information by them. It is truly a scary sight as a musician to see Robots making music, however I think they have a long way to go till World Domination.
For today's game, I picked a game with a similar theme of Control. The game is The Resistance, it is similar to other games, such as Mafia or One Night Werewolf. How this game works is you must use your powers of control and manipulation to convince your fellow players that you are trustworthy and work as a team to find the people who are lying. Hand in hand with Robots, who we hope never control us, maybe this game can help us prepare for the eminent Robot Invasion!!
The AI video was really fascinating. We call out the robots for not having true artistic expression, perhaps secretly to protect our place as musicians. We humans can invoke all the nuanced inflections in our musicality on a whim, but with the level of AI learning that is happening right now I wouldn't be surprised if AI starts to catch up. I've had several friends play Resistance but I have not had the pleasure myself. The cover art reminds me of Coup, another game of power and deception.
ReplyDeleteThe robot gets me thinking: how long until the ability of robots or computers becomes so advanced that they do start to monopolize certain parts of the music industry. Obviously, things like performing are always gonna have some kind of human element, but what about scoring or performing for movies, or TV jingles? The people behind such productions are always looking for a way to save money, and a robot sophisticated enough to replace a human trumpet player would likely appeal to them. It's tin foil for sure, but just a few thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThe robot video was interesting because AI has definitely started to change how we navigate the world around us and I can only imagine when technology can create more authentic music that an individual. Will they be selling these at the 2025 toyotathon?
ReplyDeleteI am so curious about how the robots are playing the brass instruments? I'm assuming through synth? I'm not sure, but it does have a electronic-like sound to make me believe so. I think it's hard to fathom how much robots could take over human artistic expression. I would like to believe that with music, there are some aspects of playing, that would be considered imperfections by a robot, that make human made music special.
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