When any sort of artificial intelligence writes a movie script, paints a picture or does anything creative, I have to sit up and pay attention. The results are either terrifying, trippy or delightful. So this Christmas carol penned and ‘sung’ by a computer is fascinating and really creepy.
Researchers in Toronto have been working on a technique called “neural karaoke” to teach computers to write their songs after looking at simple photos of Christmas trees, holiday decorations, and various yuletide elements. You can imagine all the weirdness that might result from that directive, and you’d be right to think there’s something strange that was created as a result.
Associate Professor of Computer Science/Canadian Research Chair in Machine Learning and Computer Vision Raquel Urtasun and colleague Sanja Fiddler, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Ph.D. student Hang Chu put together something impressive here and frankly chilling. I’m not sure where the “flower” connotation is coming from, however. Is it seeing the ornaments on the tree as flowers or something plant like appendage? And calm down AI, no one has to “swear” that it is Christmas Eve or anything crazy like that!
The lyrics are bizarre and stilted, and mostly nonsensical. But at the very least it seems earnest enough. It ought to, as Chu actually offered over 100 hours of online music to the computer for it to learn how to write lyrics and compose melodies. It may not have perfected the art of writing carols, but it’s off to a pretty good start. At least it’s got Christmas as a concept down.
Check out the video of the computer’s first Christmas carol below. You might need to give it a few listens to fully appreciate it.
[Source:-Geek]
