The Download: how AI is changing music, and a US city’s AI experiment

While large language models that generate text have exploded in the last three years, a different type of AI, based on what are called diffusion models, is having an unprecedented impact on creative domains. By transforming random noise into coherent patterns, diffusion models can generate new images, videos, or speech, guided by text prompts or other input data. The best ones can create outputs indistinguishable from the work of people, as well as bizarre, surreal results that feel distinctly nonhuman. Now these models are marching into a creative field that is arguably more vulnerable to disruption than any other: music. Music models can now create songs capable of eliciting real emotional responses, presenting a stark example of how difficult it’s becoming to define authorship and originality in the age of AI. Read the full story. —James O'Donnell This story is from the next edition of our print magazine, which is all about how technology is changing creativity. Subscribe no ... Read full article.