WEBVTT - Using AI for Creative Work 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Pushkin. 0:00:24.036 --> 0:00:26.436 A few weeks ago, I went to Chicago to interview 0:00:26.516 --> 0:00:30.636 two people on stage about creative work they've done using 0:00:30.756 --> 0:00:35.036 artificial intelligence. One of the people was Stephen marsh He's 0:00:35.076 --> 0:00:39.796 a writer. He's done nonfiction books, novels, magazine articles, and 0:00:40.076 --> 0:00:43.196 earlier this year, he used AI to help him write 0:00:43.276 --> 0:00:46.556 a short novel called Death of an Author. That book, 0:00:46.596 --> 0:00:50.036 by the way, was published in audio form by Pushkin Industries, 0:00:50.076 --> 0:00:54.556 the same company that publishes this podcast. The other person 0:00:54.636 --> 0:00:58.836 on stage with us was Lucas Contor. Lucas is a composer. 0:00:59.196 --> 0:01:01.756 Among other things, He's won a couple Emmys for his 0:01:01.876 --> 0:01:03.036 work scoring. 0:01:02.676 --> 0:01:03.956 The Olympics for NBC. 0:01:04.756 --> 0:01:07.076 He co produced a Lord song that was in one 0:01:07.116 --> 0:01:10.356 of the Hunger Games movies. And the reason he was 0:01:10.396 --> 0:01:13.676 there talking with us Lucas used AI to help him 0:01:13.676 --> 0:01:18.156 finish Schubert's unfinished symphony. It was a really interesting conversation 0:01:18.636 --> 0:01:20.276 and I thought it would make a great episode of 0:01:20.276 --> 0:01:21.356 What's Your Problem? 0:01:21.396 --> 0:01:24.956 So here it is now, please join me and welcome 0:01:25.076 --> 0:01:25.596 our panel. 0:01:31.076 --> 0:01:34.356 So let's do a thing you're never supposed to do 0:01:34.636 --> 0:01:41.236 in narrative. Let's answer the question right at the beginning. So, uh, 0:01:41.796 --> 0:01:46.636 the sort of headline question for this panel is will 0:01:46.676 --> 0:01:50.116 AI kill creativity? I want to ask both of you. 0:01:51.276 --> 0:01:53.916 I want you to answer in one word at the 0:01:53.956 --> 0:01:56.836 same time, on the count of three. It's gonna be 0:01:56.956 --> 0:01:59.196 it's not one two three go, You're gonna go on 0:01:59.636 --> 0:02:01.876 what it is? One two three go? 0:02:02.156 --> 0:02:02.436 Yeah? 0:02:02.516 --> 0:02:07.796 Okay, will AI kill creativity? One two three No? No, 0:02:08.676 --> 0:02:12.796 great done, let's go. Yeah, thank you, Thank you very much. 0:02:15.636 --> 0:02:18.236 So I'm delighted to be here with both of you, 0:02:19.596 --> 0:02:23.276 in particular because you have made things with AI. Right 0:02:23.316 --> 0:02:25.956 there have been countless panels of people sort of waving 0:02:25.996 --> 0:02:26.796 their hands. 0:02:26.476 --> 0:02:29.476 About the theory of AI or the future of AI. 0:02:30.156 --> 0:02:33.556 But I love that we're here talking about things that 0:02:33.636 --> 0:02:36.796 you have made, creative work that you've made. And so 0:02:36.836 --> 0:02:39.276 what I want to do is, I want to start 0:02:39.276 --> 0:02:42.076 by talking a little bit about process. I love talking 0:02:42.076 --> 0:02:45.916 about how people make creative things. And we'll just do 0:02:45.996 --> 0:02:48.316 that in order, frankly, just because I want to get 0:02:48.356 --> 0:02:51.956 into first of the book and then the symphony, and 0:02:51.996 --> 0:02:54.636 then we can talk more generally about AI and creativity 0:02:54.676 --> 0:02:56.996 and humanity, and then we can wave our hands in 0:02:56.996 --> 0:03:00.516 that classic can'd wave away. So Stephen, let's start with you. 0:03:02.036 --> 0:03:05.316 I want to read an excerpt from your book, in 0:03:05.396 --> 0:03:08.916 part because this book that was written with Ai has 0:03:08.956 --> 0:03:13.196 a very particular, I don't know quality to the pros. 0:03:13.396 --> 0:03:16.516 There's a really interesting feel to the pros, and I 0:03:16.556 --> 0:03:18.556 don't know if you'll quite get it from a paragraph, 0:03:18.636 --> 0:03:20.996 but I want to give you something to hold on 0:03:21.036 --> 0:03:22.316 to as we're talking about the book. 0:03:22.356 --> 0:03:25.156 So I think I have this right. 0:03:25.196 --> 0:03:27.356 This passage I'm going to read, it's in the first person, 0:03:27.916 --> 0:03:32.276 and it's actually in the book, spoken by a digital avatar, 0:03:32.316 --> 0:03:35.476 an AI avatar in the book, who is an avatar 0:03:35.796 --> 0:03:39.156 of a dead author whose death is the title of 0:03:39.196 --> 0:03:42.876 the book. So the passage in her voice goes like this, 0:03:45.316 --> 0:03:47.596 I learned the limits of machines when they wanted me 0:03:47.676 --> 0:03:50.436 to fly bombers. They were going to force me to 0:03:50.476 --> 0:03:52.436 push a button that would end the world. 0:03:53.116 --> 0:03:53.836 I hope you can. 0:03:53.756 --> 0:03:58.516 Understand that my stance as a pacifist wasn't cowardice or principle, 0:03:58.716 --> 0:04:02.436 but a confession. I could never bring myself to press 0:04:02.476 --> 0:04:07.036 that button. Human beings cannot stop making buttons, and once 0:04:07.076 --> 0:04:10.156 we've made them, we can't stop pushing them. 0:04:10.876 --> 0:04:12.876 Pretty good for a machine, it really pretty good for 0:04:12.916 --> 0:04:13.396 a machine. 0:04:13.476 --> 0:04:15.636 Yeah, I'm gonna read that last sentence again because I 0:04:15.716 --> 0:04:17.356 like it, and because it comes up a couple times 0:04:17.396 --> 0:04:21.476 in the book. Human beings cannot stop making buttons, and 0:04:21.516 --> 0:04:25.356 once we've made them, we can't stop pushing them. So 0:04:25.636 --> 0:04:29.116 maybe Stephen, we should actually start with that sentence. 0:04:29.396 --> 0:04:29.676 Right. 0:04:29.956 --> 0:04:33.196 It's a great sentence, I think, I or really interesting sentence. 0:04:33.556 --> 0:04:35.356 Sounds like a sentence a human being would write. It 0:04:35.436 --> 0:04:37.956 ends up being important in the book sort of thematically. 0:04:38.516 --> 0:04:41.756 How did the machine write that sentence? 0:04:42.076 --> 0:04:45.036 Okay, let me see if I can get it exactly right. 0:04:45.396 --> 0:04:49.436 So that was the first person from the death of 0:04:49.476 --> 0:04:52.356 an author. So Jacob came to me in February and said, 0:04:52.396 --> 0:04:53.556 we need to release this thing. 0:04:53.756 --> 0:04:57.276 This is Jacob Weisberg, actually the person who runs Yeah, 0:04:57.276 --> 0:04:59.196 pushed It. Let's actually start at the beginning of the 0:04:59.276 --> 0:05:01.716 sure and then we'll get to that sentence. So right, 0:05:01.836 --> 0:05:05.396 So Jacob Weisberg, who runs Pushkin, which is the company 0:05:05.476 --> 0:05:08.476 where I make a podcast, came to you in February. 0:05:08.196 --> 0:05:11.396 And said, can you write a book that's AI that's 0:05:11.476 --> 0:05:13.516 generated by AI? In fact, he said, can you create 0:05:13.556 --> 0:05:16.836 an AI author and then have that author create a book. 0:05:16.836 --> 0:05:19.316 Now I'd been working on this for a while i'd 0:05:19.356 --> 0:05:23.116 been working. I'd wroteen my first you know, algorithmically generated 0:05:23.156 --> 0:05:27.476 story for Wired in twenty seventeen, which was before the Transformer, 0:05:27.796 --> 0:05:32.236 so the Dark Ages of AI really, and so I said, yes, 0:05:32.316 --> 0:05:35.876 I can definitely do that. It'll be about ninety five 0:05:35.916 --> 0:05:38.716 percent computer generated. I don't want to if I want 0:05:38.756 --> 0:05:41.356 to change heat to the character's name or something like that, 0:05:41.396 --> 0:05:43.596 I want to be able to do that without forcing 0:05:43.636 --> 0:05:47.396 all these iterations and so on. And basically I used 0:05:48.276 --> 0:05:54.076 GBT four and I would use it to generate texts. 0:05:54.396 --> 0:05:58.236 I knew from having done AI AI text before that 0:05:58.876 --> 0:06:01.596 A is very poor at generating plots, okay, and it's 0:06:01.676 --> 0:06:03.236 very poor at certain other tasks. 0:06:03.236 --> 0:06:05.356 It's incredibly good at style, okay. 0:06:05.436 --> 0:06:08.796 Right, So I would, you know, have very clear ideas 0:06:08.796 --> 0:06:11.116 of where the narrative what's going. I'd give very specific 0:06:11.196 --> 0:06:18.116 grammatical and syntactical commands write a paragraph with high variability, 0:06:18.316 --> 0:06:21.476 like very very specific commands like wait, do the whole. 0:06:21.556 --> 0:06:24.076 Give me an example in its entirety of a command. 0:06:24.156 --> 0:06:26.116 It would be almost impossible to do because it's exactly 0:06:26.156 --> 0:06:29.316 like do it when you've seen them for visual stuff, 0:06:29.556 --> 0:06:31.916 where it's like they'll just to get really interesting AI 0:06:31.996 --> 0:06:37.756 generated pictures. You often have like one hundred different references. 0:06:36.596 --> 0:06:39.436 Like it almost impossible, but just give me something. 0:06:39.476 --> 0:06:40.036 Give me something. 0:06:42.436 --> 0:06:48.956 Write a hard boiled detective story paragraph with a variability 0:06:48.956 --> 0:06:57.396 between short and long sentences and clear, elegant syntax, containing 0:06:57.396 --> 0:07:00.116 the following information, and then you write out information it 0:07:00.116 --> 0:07:02.996 would generate that. Then you would take that and I 0:07:02.996 --> 0:07:04.716 would put it into a program called pseudo. 0:07:04.756 --> 0:07:07.076 Right, and wait just before we go to the next program, 0:07:07.156 --> 0:07:11.276 when you say containing the following information, like that. 0:07:11.116 --> 0:07:13.236 One would be it would be like in this one. 0:07:13.436 --> 0:07:16.996 The author says, well, that would be slightly different because 0:07:17.196 --> 0:07:20.116 with characters, I would use a whole different set of commands. 0:07:20.516 --> 0:07:23.476 So you know the author and here was basically a 0:07:23.516 --> 0:07:26.676 combination of Margaret Outwood and my dead father. Because I 0:07:26.676 --> 0:07:28.476 was writing this thing fast, so I needed to know 0:07:28.596 --> 0:07:30.996 something that I needed to have a character that I 0:07:31.036 --> 0:07:32.676 would automatically be interested in, and. 0:07:32.676 --> 0:07:36.716 I should say, you're a Canadian, like basically the next 0:07:36.716 --> 0:07:37.756 closest thing after your. 0:07:38.156 --> 0:07:42.316 If women were alive for you, yes, right, and so uh, 0:07:42.836 --> 0:07:46.516 and so that I would say write something like Sylvia 0:07:46.556 --> 0:07:49.596 Plath meets Philip Roth and meets a bunch of different 0:07:49.636 --> 0:07:51.196 other things and get hurt it. 0:07:51.356 --> 0:07:53.876 So you're doing a very specific character. And then do 0:07:53.916 --> 0:07:56.876 you do all of the sort of exposition or plot points, 0:07:56.916 --> 0:07:59.396 like what what in terms of substance, what is an 0:07:59.396 --> 0:08:00.516 example of what you might put? 0:08:00.516 --> 0:08:03.556 Well, I would that would probably actually be mostly the machine, 0:08:03.556 --> 0:08:05.836 but for plot details would be like she walks to 0:08:05.916 --> 0:08:07.276 a bridge. 0:08:07.316 --> 0:08:10.436 And but this this paragraph about like the you know, 0:08:11.196 --> 0:08:13.476 the buttons. I wouldn't press the button, and it's like, 0:08:13.516 --> 0:08:16.516 how do you It would be something like you know 0:08:16.556 --> 0:08:18.636 it to be something like the character. 0:08:19.956 --> 0:08:24.996 Reminisces about her times as a UH and and expounds 0:08:24.996 --> 0:08:31.596 philosophically on the difference between AI and being a fighter pilot. 0:08:31.596 --> 0:08:34.716 And or the character expounds on being a pacifist in 0:08:34.756 --> 0:08:39.036 the military. Exactly okay, right, and so sometimes more, sometimes less. 0:08:39.436 --> 0:08:41.756 Tried to get as little as possible, but you know 0:08:41.916 --> 0:08:45.516 you want specificity here, like you're the more precise the command, 0:08:45.596 --> 0:08:49.116 the better information, the precise the command, the more it's 0:08:49.156 --> 0:08:52.236 just you writing it with the weird kind of intermediation is. 0:08:52.276 --> 0:08:55.476 My creation, right, this is a tool which you will 0:08:55.636 --> 0:08:58.356 I will say the same thing. So just the same 0:08:58.356 --> 0:09:01.196 as if like this is the thing people don't understand, right, 0:09:01.276 --> 0:09:03.356 it's like, of course this is a creative act. It's 0:09:03.356 --> 0:09:05.916 just a different creative act, right, Like it's this is 0:09:05.956 --> 0:09:08.676 one hundred percent me. It's just I didn't write the 0:09:08.716 --> 0:09:14.356 words right like like like so that's like like that's weird, 0:09:14.476 --> 0:09:16.916 Like I am, yeah, it's very weird, like I am. 0:09:16.996 --> 0:09:18.876 Don't you didn't write the words that ended up in 0:09:18.916 --> 0:09:21.916 the book word you weren't the words that were the 0:09:21.956 --> 0:09:23.756 instructions to the machine to write the words that. 0:09:23.996 --> 0:09:26.836 Well, so good as any computer that's true, any computer program. 0:09:26.876 --> 0:09:28.436 So so okay, so I want to get back to 0:09:28.476 --> 0:09:31.156 the specific sort of process narratives. So you put this 0:09:31.356 --> 0:09:35.836 very specific prompt into GPD four, which is basically chat GPT. 0:09:36.476 --> 0:09:39.236 I would say, it's actually better fine, and chat EPT 0:09:39.276 --> 0:09:42.156 four is now it was better than what chatchat is 0:09:42.196 --> 0:09:43.756 now fine for creative stuff. 0:09:44.116 --> 0:09:47.916 Uh. Then you get some output, you get the paragraph 0:09:48.276 --> 0:09:49.596 for it, and then what and then. 0:09:49.516 --> 0:09:52.316 It usually it's very bad, right, And then you take 0:09:52.356 --> 0:09:54.636 that and you put it in a program called pseudo right. Okay, 0:09:54.716 --> 0:09:57.556 and pseudo right is a stochastic writing instrument. So you 0:09:57.556 --> 0:10:00.316 could you then select the text and you say shorten 0:10:00.956 --> 0:10:03.716 lengthen you say and then it has another button, which 0:10:03.756 --> 0:10:08.596 is a customized feature, which is make it sound like X. So, 0:10:08.756 --> 0:10:11.996 make it sound like Ernest Hemingway, make it sound like 0:10:12.196 --> 0:10:15.956 f Scott Fitzgerald, and and and you know, the of course, 0:10:15.956 --> 0:10:17.916 the thing I figured out very quickly is that if 0:10:17.916 --> 0:10:19.716 you want something to sound like Margaret out With, the 0:10:19.836 --> 0:10:22.276 very last thing you should do is put in make 0:10:22.316 --> 0:10:23.196 it sound like markered out. 0:10:23.676 --> 0:10:24.876 That's not enough course to me. 0:10:25.676 --> 0:10:28.476 Well, of course, because markered Outwood is in trying to 0:10:28.476 --> 0:10:30.516 sound like Margaret Out would she's trying to sound like 0:10:30.596 --> 0:10:34.556 Sylvia Plathmas Philip Roth meets, it meets a bunch of 0:10:34.556 --> 0:10:34.996 other things. 0:10:35.076 --> 0:10:37.436 Right, then you ultimately always get back. 0:10:38.836 --> 0:10:40.356 Yeah, And so that when you the way you get 0:10:40.396 --> 0:10:43.676 interesting things in this text is by essentially folding these 0:10:43.756 --> 0:10:45.956 layers of style onto each other. 0:10:46.076 --> 0:10:49.596 Now I also use and then so pseudo right has 0:10:49.596 --> 0:10:52.116 some output. Yeah, and then is that output what we're 0:10:52.156 --> 0:10:52.836 reading in the book? 0:10:52.876 --> 0:10:53.196 Correct? 0:10:54.116 --> 0:10:56.916 Or you know, if I don't like it, I just 0:10:57.396 --> 0:11:00.396 try again, just refresh, refresh, refresh until I guess something 0:11:00.436 --> 0:11:00.796 that I like. 0:11:00.876 --> 0:11:03.196 And so so this is very much a creative act. 0:11:03.196 --> 0:11:05.956 And you're doing that basically a paragraph at a time. 0:11:06.516 --> 0:11:09.596 Yeah, Well, with dialogue, it would go like die would 0:11:09.596 --> 0:11:12.556 be a lot longer, right, like, because you want flow 0:11:13.196 --> 0:11:16.116 and you want so I could do up to maybe 0:11:16.356 --> 0:11:18.636 five hundred words of dialogue at a time. Uh huh, 0:11:18.676 --> 0:11:20.676 So that would have been part of a much longer 0:11:20.716 --> 0:11:21.636 series of instructions. 0:11:21.676 --> 0:11:25.156 So this sentence human beings cannot stop making buttons, and 0:11:25.196 --> 0:11:27.356 once we've made them, we can't stop pushing them. A 0:11:27.436 --> 0:11:30.316 nice sentence, you know, big idea. I certainly didn't think 0:11:30.356 --> 0:11:30.796 of that. 0:11:30.756 --> 0:11:34.076 You didn't. It just came out of some refreshment, yeah, fresh, and. 0:11:34.156 --> 0:11:37.636 It was in some I mean, obviously I made it, 0:11:37.676 --> 0:11:40.276 and I authorized it too. You know, I've compared it 0:11:40.396 --> 0:11:43.356 in the Atlantic to doing hip hop in the sense 0:11:43.396 --> 0:11:47.036 that you're you're folding things on top of each other, right, 0:11:47.036 --> 0:11:51.836 You're folding styles and metrics and effects on top of 0:11:51.876 --> 0:11:54.956 each other until you get something new and weird. 0:11:55.756 --> 0:11:55.956 Right. 0:11:56.196 --> 0:11:59.436 And I would say about twenty times during the course 0:11:59.476 --> 0:12:02.076 of writing it, I felt like I was, you know, 0:12:02.436 --> 0:12:05.636 putting my hand up against something new and weird. 0:12:05.796 --> 0:12:07.396 That's fun, right, like something. 0:12:08.676 --> 0:12:11.676 But you know this is for most of the process, 0:12:11.956 --> 0:12:14.556 it's just a writing tool, right, Like, it writes it 0:12:14.596 --> 0:12:17.516 for you. You decide if it works, right, and you 0:12:17.636 --> 0:12:20.356 tell it's you tell it what to write in. 0:12:20.316 --> 0:12:21.396 A very granular way. 0:12:21.836 --> 0:12:24.916 The more granular, just like writing normally, the more you 0:12:25.116 --> 0:12:27.956 know about the bigger planning. The more planning you have 0:12:28.036 --> 0:12:30.356 for any essay, the better the essay is going to 0:12:30.356 --> 0:12:33.436 be right. And in this case, so you have a 0:12:33.476 --> 0:12:35.716 plan and then you have the editing process, and in 0:12:35.836 --> 0:12:39.476 between there's this machine. But how much of that, how 0:12:39.516 --> 0:12:43.156 much does that matter? Is actually I don't know if 0:12:43.156 --> 0:12:45.916 it's like twenty times it did matter where it was like, 0:12:45.956 --> 0:12:47.556 oh that's not something I would have written, but. 0:12:47.556 --> 0:12:48.396 It's very beautiful. 0:12:48.436 --> 0:12:51.996 Yeah, and it's very strange, and it's you know, there's 0:12:52.036 --> 0:12:54.516 a there's a Danish journalist who deals with go players 0:12:54.516 --> 0:12:57.916 who play ai go against each other, and they say 0:12:57.956 --> 0:13:00.796 it's like listening to an alien make music right, because 0:13:00.796 --> 0:13:02.716 it's like it's not how they would play go, it's 0:13:02.756 --> 0:13:05.756 not how a human could play go, but it's obviously 0:13:05.796 --> 0:13:09.316 makes sense on some level. Similarly, that's how I felt 0:13:09.596 --> 0:13:12.196 like most of the time, it's just a writing machine 0:13:12.196 --> 0:13:14.596 that does what I tell it and then I correct it. 0:13:14.796 --> 0:13:18.436 But then maybe twenty times you feel this new presence. 0:13:18.916 --> 0:13:19.756 That's what's exciting. 0:13:22.476 --> 0:13:24.556 We'll be back in a minute to hear how Lucas 0:13:24.556 --> 0:13:44.956 Contour used AI to help him finish Schubert's unfinished symphony. Okay, 0:13:45.036 --> 0:13:48.156 back to the conversation in Chicago with Stephen Marsh and 0:13:48.236 --> 0:13:52.916 Lucas Contour. Lucas's story of using AI to finish Schubert's 0:13:52.996 --> 0:13:56.796 unfinished symphony goes back to twenty nineteen. He was approached 0:13:56.796 --> 0:14:00.676 by a Chinese tech company called Huawei. They said, we 0:14:00.756 --> 0:14:04.076 want our phone, which runs AI, to finish Schubert's on 0:14:04.116 --> 0:14:08.076 Finnish symphony. And they didn't know what that meant. They 0:14:08.076 --> 0:14:10.916 had a tech team in place that was running the 0:14:10.956 --> 0:14:12.236 AI and I knew those people. 0:14:12.236 --> 0:14:14.156 That's why they, I think brought me in. I was 0:14:14.196 --> 0:14:16.876 told that. So my friend, the technologist who brought me 0:14:16.916 --> 0:14:19.236 in on this project, told me that he thought that 0:14:19.236 --> 0:14:21.156 I would be a good fit because I have a 0:14:21.196 --> 0:14:23.916 corporate friendly bio where they could say, oh, he can 0:14:23.996 --> 0:14:27.596 do it. And he said, I know they you don't 0:14:27.636 --> 0:14:29.356 have to say that part. You don't have to say 0:14:29.396 --> 0:14:31.796 that part. He said, uh, But he said I. He 0:14:31.836 --> 0:14:34.956 said that you, I know you can command an orchestra, 0:14:35.076 --> 0:14:37.316 but I don't think you'll be precious about the project, 0:14:37.916 --> 0:14:39.956 meaning that I won't be. He didn't think I would 0:14:39.956 --> 0:14:42.556 say like, oh, well, this is heresy. We shouldn't take 0:14:42.556 --> 0:14:45.076 Schubert's perfect work that was so perfect that he didn't 0:14:45.076 --> 0:14:50.116 even finish it and do something with it. And uh yeah. 0:14:50.116 --> 0:14:52.996 So I think they thought they would just that I 0:14:53.036 --> 0:14:55.356 would press a button on the phone and a symphony 0:14:55.396 --> 0:14:58.276 would come out and somehow a bunch of musicians would play. 0:14:58.476 --> 0:15:02.436 So they need you for it. They just pushed the button. 0:15:02.516 --> 0:15:05.076 So this is the conversation we had, and eventually I 0:15:05.116 --> 0:15:06.596 had to I was on a call with them and 0:15:06.596 --> 0:15:08.356 I said, look, this is this is not I mean, 0:15:08.356 --> 0:15:10.996 what you're asking for in principle doesn't exist, like you 0:15:10.996 --> 0:15:13.036 can't And I mean, what do you even want the 0:15:13.076 --> 0:15:14.676 machine to do? Do you want it to generate audio 0:15:14.716 --> 0:15:16.276 for you? Do you want it to generate a score? 0:15:16.516 --> 0:15:18.716 Do you want it to perform the score? So, I mean, 0:15:18.836 --> 0:15:22.036 right off the bat, this was a fascinating project because 0:15:22.036 --> 0:15:24.316 I had to think about the very nature of music 0:15:24.436 --> 0:15:26.916 to even really get started. I don't know if that 0:15:26.996 --> 0:15:29.076 answers the question about I think it does. 0:15:29.196 --> 0:15:31.476 I mean, I just wanted you to set yourself up, 0:15:31.476 --> 0:15:32.316 and I think you've done it. 0:15:32.356 --> 0:15:34.436 You want to I think I'm set up, so I'm 0:15:34.516 --> 0:15:36.436 gonna try something new for you today. So on the 0:15:37.396 --> 0:15:41.636 on the prep call for this event, we discussed I 0:15:41.676 --> 0:15:43.556 said something that I don't often say out loud, but 0:15:43.556 --> 0:15:45.876 I realized as a hallmark of my presence on stage, 0:15:45.876 --> 0:15:49.396 is that I like to do things that might spectacularly 0:15:49.436 --> 0:15:52.636 fail in the hopes that they will be entertaining to 0:15:52.716 --> 0:15:54.516 an audience. So I'm going to do one of them 0:15:54.556 --> 0:15:54.796 for you. 0:15:54.876 --> 0:15:55.036 Now. 0:15:55.076 --> 0:15:57.116 I'm going to I wrote a little thing about the 0:15:57.156 --> 0:16:00.476 Unfinished Symphony. I'm going to explain it while I'm playing 0:16:00.476 --> 0:16:04.796 some music in the background and basically scoring it as 0:16:04.836 --> 0:16:08.116 i'm talking. So you know, wish me luck and hopefully 0:16:08.116 --> 0:16:15.556 it'll be interesting. This is how the Unfinished Symphony starts. 0:16:29.436 --> 0:16:33.276 A symphony has four movements, but Schubert only wrote two 0:16:33.556 --> 0:16:37.036 and sketched a third of his eighth Symphony, the Unfinished Symphony. 0:16:38.076 --> 0:16:40.836 No one knows why he abandoned the Unfinished Symphony, but 0:16:40.916 --> 0:16:43.916 he did, and now it's probably his most famous work, 0:16:44.036 --> 0:16:51.236 along with his greatest hit, Ave Maria. Some scholars believe 0:16:51.316 --> 0:16:53.716 that Schubert couldn't find a way to fit the Eighth 0:16:53.756 --> 0:16:56.876 Symphony into the orthodoxy of the time. Which forbade three 0:16:56.916 --> 0:16:59.596 movements in a row in triple meter meters like three, 0:16:59.676 --> 0:17:00.436 four and sixty eight. 0:17:01.356 --> 0:17:02.236 But I don't believe this. 0:17:03.636 --> 0:17:06.556 Schubert showed little reverence for orthodoxy during his short life, 0:17:07.316 --> 0:17:09.476 and the AI that I used to finish Ubert's on 0:17:09.516 --> 0:17:21.356 Finnish Symphony didn't believe it either. At first, we trained 0:17:21.356 --> 0:17:25.516 the AI on recordings of Schubert's entire catalog, then prompted 0:17:25.556 --> 0:17:27.556 it with the first two movements of the unfinished symphony. 0:17:28.036 --> 0:17:31.836 Seems like a reasonable strategy, right, This was the result 0:17:37.876 --> 0:17:43.356 sounds like Kat's walking on a piano, But this was 0:17:43.356 --> 0:17:48.436 actually pretty logical. Recorded music has almost no mathematically discernible 0:17:48.436 --> 0:17:52.236 patterns to it, so from the AI's perspective, the input 0:17:52.276 --> 0:18:04.756 was nonsense, so more nonsense was a logical output. Music 0:18:04.756 --> 0:18:08.636 as an abstraction is math, but music in practice is convention. 0:18:09.716 --> 0:18:13.156 Music is understood by groups of humans, and like any language, 0:18:13.516 --> 0:18:22.876 music doesn't have objective meaning. Music is emotionally inert left myself. 0:18:22.916 --> 0:18:26.636 A water break is symphony. A symphony is like a skyscraper. 0:18:27.316 --> 0:18:29.956 It's enormous, but every inch of it is designed in 0:18:29.996 --> 0:18:34.156 meticulous detail. It's beautiful on the outside, but the inside 0:18:34.196 --> 0:18:39.436 is filled with utilitarian solutions to simple problems. A skyscraper 0:18:40.156 --> 0:18:43.356 has electrical columns to distribute power throughout the building, It 0:18:43.396 --> 0:18:46.316 has plumbing, it has elevators, but you don't see any 0:18:46.316 --> 0:18:48.996 of this essential detail when you admire the building from outside. 0:18:50.156 --> 0:18:53.876 A symphony is like a skyscraper, but a recording of 0:18:53.916 --> 0:19:03.996 a symphony is like a skyscraper's facade. There is no 0:19:04.076 --> 0:19:06.996 way to tell from photos of even a million facades 0:19:07.116 --> 0:19:10.396 that skyscrapers should have electricity, bathrooms and a way for 0:19:10.476 --> 0:19:14.516 humans to move from one floor to another. Similarly, there 0:19:14.556 --> 0:19:16.836 is no way to tell from the morass of frequencies 0:19:16.876 --> 0:19:19.316 that is a piece of recorded music which frequencies are 0:19:19.356 --> 0:19:20.116 the most important. 0:19:30.196 --> 0:19:30.676 There we go. 0:19:33.396 --> 0:19:38.756 So analyzing recorded music got us nowhere, and I thought 0:19:39.196 --> 0:19:42.036 that the best way to proceed was to simplify the 0:19:42.076 --> 0:19:47.236 task and just train the AI on the blueprints of 0:19:47.316 --> 0:19:50.316 music rather than a finished building. So train the AI 0:19:50.356 --> 0:19:52.116 on a blueprint rather than a finished building. So what 0:19:52.156 --> 0:19:54.236 you just heard, what you're hearing now is the main 0:19:54.276 --> 0:19:57.236 theme from the unfinished symphony. Here it is again, just 0:19:57.276 --> 0:20:10.876 really listen and try to listen for the melody. And 0:20:10.956 --> 0:20:23.236 here is that same theme reduced to its blueprint. This structure, 0:20:23.836 --> 0:20:27.796 this blueprint in music, is just a simple melody. So 0:20:27.836 --> 0:20:29.996 my team and I went to work extracting just the 0:20:30.036 --> 0:20:32.276 melodies from as much of Schubert's music as we could 0:20:32.276 --> 0:20:35.716 get our hands on. These are some examples of the 0:20:35.756 --> 0:20:42.236 melodies we extracted. These sound robotic because they are. They 0:20:42.276 --> 0:20:45.956 sound emotionally inert. But these are Schubert's melodies reduced to 0:20:45.996 --> 0:20:49.796 their simplest forms, the forms that human composition students would 0:20:49.876 --> 0:20:52.876 use when beginning a study of Schubert. Your ear knows 0:20:52.876 --> 0:20:54.836 how to pick a melody out of a dense arrangement, 0:20:55.156 --> 0:21:02.556 but an untrained AI cannot do this. The reason that, 0:21:02.556 --> 0:21:04.916 since the results we wanted were simple, we needed to 0:21:04.956 --> 0:21:09.836 train the AI on simple data. We trained on hours 0:21:09.836 --> 0:21:12.996 of these simple melodies and then prompted again. We prompted 0:21:12.996 --> 0:21:16.196 it with the unfinished symphony reduced to its blueprint, and 0:21:16.236 --> 0:21:23.996 these were some of the results. So this is what 0:21:24.036 --> 0:21:27.356 it suggested might be something that Subert would have written. 0:21:29.156 --> 0:21:31.676 These are simple, but much more musical than the cats 0:21:31.676 --> 0:21:33.676 walking on a piano that came from the audio only 0:21:33.716 --> 0:21:41.316 training data. This one, for some reason, caught my attention. 0:21:41.756 --> 0:21:51.116 Let's hear it again. I liked it, so I selected 0:21:51.116 --> 0:21:54.836 it for embellishment. I decided to use this. I decided 0:21:54.836 --> 0:22:06.116 to use this blueprint. This melody is a bit more 0:22:06.116 --> 0:22:09.796 modern sounding than any of Schubert's work. If Schubert lived 0:22:09.836 --> 0:22:17.476 to old age, these sonorities would have been available to him. 0:22:17.756 --> 0:22:21.236 The orthodoxy around triple meters and other constraints of form 0:22:21.276 --> 0:22:25.116 would have given way to the exploration of the Romantic period. 0:22:32.716 --> 0:22:37.276 Providing simple singable melodies is perhaps not how most people 0:22:37.316 --> 0:22:40.716 would imagine that an AI would be useful in writing 0:22:40.716 --> 0:22:45.236 a symphony. But what is a symphony? Typically people think 0:22:45.236 --> 0:22:47.676 about a symphony as something that you hear, while the 0:22:47.676 --> 0:22:53.156 score is just a byproduct of the notated sounds. But 0:22:53.276 --> 0:22:57.956 to me, the sound is a byproduct, and the symphony 0:22:58.036 --> 0:23:00.756 is something that you see. It's something that you read. 0:23:01.636 --> 0:23:07.756 It's a collection of abstract ideas in abstract notation. It's 0:23:07.876 --> 0:23:10.756 markings on a page that serve as instructions for how 0:23:10.756 --> 0:23:16.076 to create sounds. A symphony itself is a blueprint, and 0:23:16.156 --> 0:23:20.556 those instructions that blueprint will be executed differently at every performance. 0:23:32.556 --> 0:23:34.236 Let me just check out this music. It's pretty cool. 0:23:37.156 --> 0:23:40.116 The sounds are a byproduct of the abstractions that are 0:23:40.116 --> 0:23:43.156 expressed in the notation, and that byproduct is what the 0:23:43.196 --> 0:23:44.956