Creating an AI Musician with JavaScript
Thomas Drach at JSConf US 2019
What would it mean if there were an AI musician? An artist that wrote its own drums, keyboards, and complete songs. An artist that generated album art and live visuals. People writing JavaScript are some of the most interesting artists today, and using the latest TensorFlow APIs (and projects like Magenta), we're able to generate sounds and instruments using only JavaScript. It's a bit ridiculous for a "musician" to be generated using purely JavaScript... but that's exactly why we should do it. In this talk, we'll look at the innards of a couple of digital instruments that use Neural Nets and Machine Learning models to generate music. We'll also compile a complete song, rock out together, and have some fun. This talk is lighthearted, but will also pose some big questions: What would it mean if you knew the music you listened to was made by a computer? Would you like it more? Or less? By the end of it, you'll be able to take these instruments and build your own songs—or your own musicians.