Can computers produce original art and music? Google is finding out

May 25, 2016

This article is published in collaboration with Business Insider.

A man types on a computer keyboard in Warsaw in this February 28, 2013 illustration file picture. One of the largest ever cyber attacks is slowing global internet services after an organisation blocking "spam" content became a target, with some experts saying the disruption could get worse. To match INTERNET-ATTACK/

Google is launching a new artificial intelligence group called "Magenta" to see if computers can create their own masterpieces. Image: REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Files

Sam Shead

Technology Reporter, Business Insider

Google is launching a new artificial intelligence group called "Magenta" to see if computers can create their own masterpieces,according to Quartz.

The group was reportedly outlined on Sunday by Douglas Eck, a researcher at Google Brain (one of Google's well-established AI divisions), at the Moogfest tech and music festival in Durham, North Carolina.

Google's deep dream provided inspiration for the artwork

Image: Google

Magenta, due to launch more publicly at the start of June, will reportedly aim to establish whether AIs can be trained to create original pieces of music, art, or video. In order to determine whether this is possible, the Magenta team will use TensorFlow — a software library for machine intelligence that Google built and opened up to the public at the end of last year.

The first product to be released by Magenta will be a simple program that's designed to help researchers import music data from MIDI music files into TensorFlow, according to Quartz. This will reportedly give their systems knowledge of music.

Adam Roberts, a member of Ecks team, told Quartz that the group will start posting more information about the tools it will be producing from June 1. Magenta will also be adding new software to its GitHub page and posting regular updates to a blog from this date. Roberts also showed the audience at Moogfest a new digital synthesizer program he's been working on that can form a melody after hearing a few notes.

Eck reportedly said that the inspiration for Magenta came from other Google Brain projects, including one called Google Deep Dream, where AI systems were trained on image databases to "fill in the gaps" in pieces of art and photos.

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