Software That’s Truly Creative

Google’s latest artificial intelligence project—known as Magenta—is aimed at developing software capable of generating ideas. Drawing on Google’s recent research into artificial neural networks, the goal is to help professionals such as artists, musicians, architects and writers by offering creative suggestions.

For example, Google has developed prototype software that can take a handful of musical notes and extrapolate them into a short song based on an analysis of 4,500 pop-music tunes. The next step may be to augment this capability with an approach Google has already incorporated into its AlphaGo software (which beat one of the world’s top Go players earlier this year). Known as reinforcement learning, the software acquires new skills by maximizing rewards, similar to the way you would train a puppy. Such a technique could make the software capable of more complex works.

Whether or not software will ever achieve artistic autonomy is still debatable. Only time will tell if neural networks are capable of moving from imitation mode to becoming purely creative.