Newly developed AI allows giving people chance to be artistic

Global Business

Artificial intelligence has been branching out into new fields all the time, like job search, security, and even disease detection.

It’s beaten the best Alpha-Go players and can make calculations far faster than the human mind. But can it be creative?

CGTN’s Mark Niu reports.

Snap a rhythm and create the drum beats. Then hum whatever tune is on your mind. The newly launched version of the app Humtap is using artificial intelligence to help anyone literally create music in seconds.

“Very few people, even a fraction of one percent create the popular music to the masses listen to,” said Tamer Rasha, founder and CEO of Humtap. “With this kind of technology, it brings more and more people to be able to create music.”

But should songwriters fear AI?

“I think this would really help songwriters to focus on what machines cannot do,” said Rashad. “It will expedite the speed, bring more content, more creativity, and the more you free yourself from the mundane, that really leads people to be more creative in other areas, hence the idea we expect new genres and even new styles to come.”

The lines of artistry are also beginning to blur at Gray Area – an incubator program where art and technology combine. Artist and programmer Cynthia Hua is using a robot to draw artwork that was created by artificial intelligence. Her AI program has the ability to start drawing a cloud and decide on its own how to finish as an animal.

“I think where we are now is the early stages,” said Hua. “And a lot of the generation does feel very child-like in the way it progresses. And I like that aesthetic because it almost infuses the work with a sense of wonder.”

But Does AI have the potential to someday outperform the human artist?

“I would never put them in competition really. I think they are coming from two different viewpoints,” said Hua. “First of all most art made by people would have context. And that’s something that AI will never have. So I would never as an artist or a writer worry about being replaced by a computer because computers don’t live human lives, and therefore the art will never come from that place.”

Hua believes AI can actually help create better human artists because it has the ability to trigger new thoughts and inspiration that an artist otherwise would not have produced on their own.


Cherie Hu talks growing AI presence in the arts industry

CGTN’s Susan Roberst spoke with a music business journalist Cherie Hu about artificial intelligence re-shaping the arts.