This Artificial Intelligence Just Learned How to Write Songs Like The Beatles

Artificial intelligence, big data, the cloud, Facebook privacy settings – these are things on the periphery of our lives. They’re intangible by nature and affect our lives in abstract ways, difficult to discern if you’re not looking for them.

While hard to see, this kind of technology has been seeping into culture for years now. Things like Netflix recommendations or Spotify Discover playlists are driven by algorithms – basic forms of artificial intelligence – built mostly to organize and collate our culture preferences.

Now though, similar systems are being used to actually create that content. Scientists at Sony’s CSL Research Lab have created an artificial intelligence which can write songs in the style of any artist you want.

French composer Benoît Carré had the AI, which has been given the entirely non-threatening name of Flow Composer, to create a song that apes the Beatles.

It’s weird, but it kind of works, right?

Here’s one more in line with artists like Duke Ellington or Cole Porter.

According to CSL’s blog, Flow Composer exploits “unique combinations of style transfer, optimization and interaction techniques,” to compose music in any style from it’s database of songs.

The songs here will be part of a compilation album to be released sometime next year.