Re: The Singularity

A reader writes to comment on our post on Ray Kurzweil and his prediction of the coming Singularity - the view that in just a few decades human beings will be able to download the entirety of their mental contents into a computer and thereby achieve immortality. Kurzweil thinks computers will supplant the human brain, being able to perform all the functions that the brain now performs. This reader raises an interesting point:

When I was a music major in the early 80s, music and computers were a hot topic of discussion among musicians. One day in music theory class our professor said, "Listen to this piece of music and tell me what you think of it when it's over." He played a short piece written in the style of a J.S. Bach invention, yet it was not appealing to me or any of the other students in the room. The prof asked "What's wrong with it?" He went on to tell us that it adhered to all of Bach's rules for four part harmony perfectly and was performed well in its Time meter.

One of my classmates said something like "It has no soul." We all agreed it sounded as if a technically proficient musician who lacked feeling had performed it. The prof then told us a computer had been programmed with Bach's writing rules and had then composed the piece of music and performed the music. That was in 1981 or 1982, computers were no good at writing or performing music to the discriminating ear then.

Before I began this reply I went to You-Tube and tried to find a piece of music composed by a computer. I could find no such posting. I find for art to be art it has to have the human element which a computer can't imitate successfully.

Maybe someone can help with this. Can computers compose and perform music today that is indistinguishable from a human composition or performance?