Professor Michael Casey's CV is somewhat intimidating. The 48-year-old, originally from Derby in the UK, has a PhD from MIT and is currently Professor of Music and Computer Science at Dartmouth. The author of six books and numerous articles, his research decoding musical sound from human brain imaging is beginning to blur the lines between computer science, neuroscience, and, indeed, science-fiction.

In 2012, he used an fMRI scanner to record the brain activity of a set of test subjects as they perceived and imagined sounds. From there, he was able to map out a pattern in such detail that it could be used to decode the brainwaves of a different set of people. He could actually recreate the sounds they were imagining and even listen to them. ((Casey et al., 2012; Hanke et al., 2015))

They were not exactly the same as the originals, but they were close enough to know that a monumental barrier had been broken. It is not being melodramatic to say that nothing will ever be the same again.

So what will be the impact of this work? One application could include composing music with only the mind, especially helpful for the physically disabled. It also affords scientists an objective view of what a person is hearing - instead of having to rely on the subject's description. Looking further forward, Prof. Casey agreed that uploading and downloading whole intellects is feasible.

New Dawn

The ramifications of this could be seismic. If human thoughts can be turned into digital data then, theoretically, it must be possible for a computer to contain human thoughts and therefore emulate a human.

‘The Turing Tests in the Creative Arts’ is designed to examine precisely this question. It is a new competition hosted by Dartmouth College’s Neukom Institute for Computational Science, named after Alan Turing’s 1950 test of a machine’s ability to exhibit behaviour indistinguishable from a human.

Competitors are invited to create a piece of software that can produce either a poem, a short story, or a DJ set, to see whether current computer technology can create art that is indistinguishable from that of a human.

But this isn’t just about testing the capabilities of computer intelligence. For Casey “it’s a wake-up call to culture: let’s see how well machines can do at doing the very things that we think are sacrosanct.

“The very idea that a computer could write a story that would have meaning to a human I think would be big news if it could happen, and I think we need to question the role of technology in culture. It’s already there, but it’s coming in insidiously.

“A lot of what you’re being recommended by sites such as Netflix is being is being mediated by algorithms. It already is a kind of artificial intelligence that’s going on behind these things, not to mention the actual production of the media itself.

 “The way film scripts are vetted and the way the films are chosen to be produced goes through a process that also involves data analysis, statistical analysis, a kind of artificial intelligence to figure out which storyline should go, which actor should be in it, which particular movie, so that they can guarantee that they’re gonna make some money.”

 In this context, the ‘Turing Tests in Creative Arts’ raises an ethical question. Is it wrong to analyse the creative process too deeply? The beauty of art is that it is openly accessible: anyone, rich or poor, young or old, from any background, is capable of creating and connecting to others through it. If the ability to create art is categorised and set down in a pattern to be reproduced then we are making it available for ownership and thus a commodity like everything else. 

Prof Casey believes this has already happened but that culture may still reject such attempts to “own” artistic creation. He said: “It’s interesting because I think culture has a very complicated relationship between the producers and the consumers. On the one hand, businesses can target consumers and can produce product that they can predict will be successful and popular.

“On the other hand, subcultures emerge that reject that kind of manipulation and then go entirely in the opposite direction, producing a kind of a new target, if you like, so you know hipster culture and alternative culture have been pretty prevalent in the last 20 years, probably precisely because of the machine of the culture industry. But they themselves become a kind of a target. So what’s next after that?”

 
Programming Creativity

David Huron believes the better we understand the act of creation, the more successful we are at it: "The more we rely on our intuitions, the more our behaviours may be dictated by unacknowledged social norms or biological predispositions. Intuition is, and has been, indispensable in the arts. But intuition needs to be supplemented by knowledge (or luck) if artists are to break through "counterintuitive" barriers into new realms of artistic expression."

What he is saying is that progression requires understanding of the creative mechanisms, but at what cost? Codifying our thoughts and the essence of creativity is to bottle that quality which most people believe makes us human. Our ability to create art is one of the ways we differentiate ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom and, so far, the rise of AI. 

Music may never prove the existence of a human soul, but it is doing something equally profound. Through researching its effects on the brain, it may force us to redefine our view of what being human is.

Macho Zapp would sincerely like to thank:

Professor Lauren Stewart

Professor Michael Casey

The Night Sea

Iris Mencke

Professor Eduardo Miranda

Professor Chris Chafe

Professor Josef Parvizzi

Maryam Zaringhalam

Lora-Faye Ashuvud