Why AI is Doomed to Fail the Musical Turing Test

I am a computer scientist, and the category error problem constantly annoys me. We find a problem that requires a lot of intelligence in humans, like playing chess or go at a grandmaster level, and declare that AI is therefore "intelligent". For some reason, it's only AI that we use this kind of language about. The best human weightlifter is easily outcompeted by a small forklift, but we don't call the forklift "strong". The best human sprinter is outcompeted by a locomotive, but we don't call the train "fit". Hell, computers have been beating humans at mental arithmetic for ages, and that's even a marker of human intelligence. To quote the great computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra, "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim." One of the under-appreciated aspects of the Turing test is that it was an activity that humans should find easy, not something like playing chess which humans find difficult. It's these "easy for us" problems where AI tends to fail, partly because they are the problems that machines find very hard, and partly because you can't get money to solve unspectacular problems. I want a machine to do things that I find easy but tedious, like cleaning my bathroom.

0:00 "What would it take for a machine to jam?" Very little, actually, my printer jams all the time.

Imagine having to prove you're not a robot by playing free bird on a fucking hurdy gurdy

I gotta say: I'm glad no human being was forced to record those Red Lobster lines...

I think the Red Lobster thing isn't proof that AI is now good at producing music, but rather an indictment of how bad music in advertising is.

This is so interesting. And such an honor to be featured! I feel like you and Jack could nerd out for days on AI (and music).

I really very much like the concept of "musicking", it reminds me of a quote from someone I very much respect a few years back, they were talking about NFTs and the commoditisation of the visual medium, but this hit me so much I don't think I'll ever forget it: "Art is a verb. It's a process. It's an act of communion. What hangs on the wall is a fucking collectible. What you and the artist communicate across centuries is the art." Obviously Small's book and concept well predate this quote, but it honestly changed my perspective on why art and music mean so much to me, and what's truly valuable and meaningful to me as someone who appreciates these things.

I am a researcher at the oxford university robotics institute, I wrote my thesis on a robotic piano that composes its own music to pass a turing test. It is an interesting video however there are lots of researchers solving these problems purely for interest. My piano can play and compose music to a level where people couldn't distinguish it from a human. Also the nature of the transformer algorithm underlining it allowed it to write harmonies to tunes people played on the piano live. It would be interesting to talk further however I doubt this comment will be found!

Adam!! Drive-by praise during the sponsor read, I was not prepared!

One might even call it a Touring Test

AI music has passed my personal turing test. I downloaded an ai song and played it to my mom. She asked me who that band was. I said "It's AI", and she thought "AI" was the name of the band.

Professor of computer science & amateur musician from the Netherlands here. First, thanks for all the thorough and well-researched videos, always a joy to watch. "AI cannot do X" arguments are, in my opinion, always tricky: AI has surprised all of us, even researchers in the field, with its incredible progress. In particular, I am not convinced about the interaction argument. Reinforcement learning is branch of AI that is specifically tailored to interacting agents learning behavior in a dynamic environment. Amazing progress by companies like Boston Dynamics has enabled robots run and do back flips. I see no reason why in several years this technology would not be able AIs to play in jam sessions. Sure, there are challenges, like there were in AI before. So the real question is how should we musicians, writers, scientists and all other relate ourselves to AI? This video makes a good contribution to that debate and the various aspects.

Things that will stop AI at jam sessions: “the usual key”

I’m about to start randomly yelling out “BLUES IN E FLAT” At the jam from now on. I’m sure everyone will love that.

Transformers are really good at one thing and that's pretending to be something. I'm convinced that if ample training data of jam sessions, with specific instruments removed and added to the mix (using simple music editing programs) is provided to an AI, we could have a real time musical jam AI, similar to how we have real time voice changing AI now.

Found this on the same day I heard GPT4o sing and make up dittys on the fly.

It doesn't need to pass a musical turing test to anihilate 90% of media composer jobs.

Someone clearly hasn't been jamming out to 'I Glued My Balls to My Butthole Again' as much as we all are.

Blablabla, if there is enough information to imitate and discern which sort of variance matters and which doesn't, it will be imitated, including the variances. Producing music is no different from producing text or images or whatever. The only difficulty for the AI imitator is to gather the collosal amount of data to "figure out" (by brute force) which subtleties matter and which don't. And this sort of imitation can be done without any soul, intention, or emotion, and it will be convincing enough to fool an average person, or most persons, thus pass the "musical Turing test". Your only chance of "winning" against such AI is to use some novel information which is crucial to the task, but could not be found anywhere in the training data, kinda like adjusting your style to your particular audience with whom you share some private, secret common background, stuff like that. But most musicians cater to broad (model) audiences, so that's not really a competitive advantage.

10:40 WOW, where can I find the full video of this? I am obsessed with this.