Could Robots Ever Appreciate Music?

[flow]

I mean even if they had robot ears.. Good music is hard to explain, but I damn well can't conceive that robots could ever get ANY of it. In fact I wonder what other mammals, if any, can appreciate music. I've heard of house cats and dogs supposedly acknowledging music by sitting close to the speakers or something of the like, but I'm fairly certain that although they do indeed feel, they don't feel music. Anyways, build a robot that digs music and I'll be more than impressed. I wonder what bands robots could even pretend to enjoy.... electronic, right? I doubt it. I bet they'd like some classical Beethoven-esque bullshit. Fucking robots, man.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

I've heard a theory that at it's core, music, is just the audial representation of math. If that's the case, if robots are even able to feel pleasure, then they'd probably take more enjoyment in music than humans ever could.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Search for non-programmed meaning? Probably not. Accept audio in ranges of quality? I think so.

 

[Jesse]

We are in essence just robots. I assume you program something complex enough it will have appreciation for it. I think an AI over a robot will appreciate it.

 

[JoeJoe]

Some people are absolutely unable to appreciate music. For them all they hear is noise and not particularly pleasant noise. The question is how will AI be developed? Will we try to reconstruct the evolution of the human brain? Or will we be more results oriented and try to make robots with as little personality as possible as to minimize destabilizing psychic effects?

First of all: Did humans 2000 years ago believe we could ever fly? Set foot on the moon? Capture pictures with the push of a single button? Build 1000 m high towers?

So, assuming that one day we will be able to build robots, that are able to appreciate music, the question of interest is, what are the prerequesites to building one?


For a robot to appreciate something, he must have emotions. Emotions have a physical and psychic effect and they affect our thought processes and decisions. So for a robot/AI to have "real" emotions, there must be some controlling mechanisms running so deeply, they cannot be simply disabled by changing a few lines of code (maybe one day even that will be possible). Does an AI really appreciate something, if you press a button, the codes of interpretation it uses are changed and now the appreciation is fixated on something totally different? I say no.

So for a robot to appreciate something it must have emotions, and to have emotions it must have some kind of subconcious.


The followup question could be something like: Where in the subconcious does music find it's place? IIRC music developed relatively early in the human brain. Also, the processing and the following appreciation of music requires very many different areas of the brain. Does an AI need the same "architectural" foundations so to speak in order to have a subconcious/emotions?

On a different mindpath: Is an artificial intelligence with emotions at all feasible without music? Yes. Is it feasible without any form of art? What is art? Is art not a metaphorization of emotions? Is an emotional AI feasible without initial emotional input?
I fear, should I continue with this mindtrack this thread would derail hopelessly off topic, should I elicit any responses.

 

[Jesse]

I doubt they would enjoy "people" music but you give something that makes decisions and the ability to learn and "art" appreciation will follow.

 

[kill the batman]

I think that music will send a robots emotion gauge to 'kill' mode wherafter the said robot will unsheath a handgun from its tube arm. Thus beginning the inevitable robot takeover.

 

[Agent Intellect]

Reminds me of this:

Spoiler

YouTube - Terminator:The Sarah Connor Chronicles-Cameron Dancing Ballet

Where our technology and understanding of the brain is now, I don't think a robot that can appreciate music could be built. At least, it might be programmed to act as if it does, but there would be no self to act as the proprietor of such emotions, so it would not be aware that it was enjoying it.

I do think that, at some point (I hope within my lifetime) an artificial intelligence could be engineered that is capable of appreciating music. I think there is some promise in the blue brain project.

 

[Cognisant]

Could Robots Ever Appreciate Music?

Artificial general intelligence could, but the kind of music it appreciates will depend upon its experiences while "growing up" and the nature of its equivalent to our human condition.

It's a lot like how different people appreciate country, rap, metal, techno, etc.

 

[kill the batman]

What if multiple artificialy intelligent beings were put into a secluded area with no former knowledge of music, would they eventually discover and appreciate it? (maybe were just on earth as some alien experiment, with similar goals)

 

[snafupants]

Music is nervous system communication; thus, robots would be unable to go deep.

 

[Anthile]

Reminds me of this:

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e29k-F5jBpk

 

[Cognisant]

What if multiple artificialy intelligent beings were put into a secluded area with no former knowledge of music, would they eventually discover and appreciate it? (maybe were just on earth as some alien experiment, with similar goals)

I don't see why not, unless of course they were deaf.

Music is nervous system communication; thus, robots would be unable to go deep.

Well not the clockwork doll "robots" as you know them, which really are just mindless automations with no will or understanding, but there are ways and means of achieving something... more.

 

[Wizardry]

I figure its just a matter of time before we have an AI that appreciates music. On the various robotics/programming forums they keep discussing ways to give values to experiences and writing a special block to their AI brains to work out unique preferences and such based on +/- values. Sort of like...when you were a child and ate chocolate cake you could say your brain registered +6 to chocolate cake. Whats more is your mother (you like your mother) made the cake (+1) and you ate it while sitting at your favorite family table from your childhood (+1), etc. Your first experience with a dog involved you being bitten (-8 to the idea of dogs) and then you needed to have your mom tend to the wound (+1 to mom, -2 for the annoyance of having the wounds). Our beings already operate on a similar system where the environment slides your value tabs until you get more or less attuned to your environment and work out your preferences. Objects and their word associations get programmed into your mind as abstract ideas with some vague "feeling" (the result of your value assessment). Like I mention the words "comfy bed", how do they make you feel? Now how about the words "surprise date with a member of the opposite sex"?

The root of a person is preservation of their DNA and from their the behavior spirals out into the randomness that is humanity. The belief is if this "value system" is intricate enough that you could say a "self" will rise up "naturally". It would be comparable to an infant growing more connections and evolving into a child. You would have to have an AI that could assimilate and evolve on its own to say that it legitimately liked music independent of direct coding from an outside entity. Some could argue that appreciation for beats at least is built into humans on a primitive level (beneficial for mate selection and promotes peace among communities) and that beat appreciation would be an ok direct programming to give the robotic mind a base to build upon.

Also I like your post JoeJoe. I have those questions running in my head everyday.

 

[Nocturne]

I guess it depends on how you define robots. Do they have feelings like us? But, in my definition of robots, I do not think they will ever be able to appreciate music. Unless, somehow, one is able to connect various circuits in a robot to create passion for things, emotions, like in the movie 'iRobot'. lol.

 

[onthewindowstand]

The only inherent difference between a man and a robot is the medium used. While one uses biological tissue the other uses a computer chip, yes the gap in complexity is large right now but there is no reason to think that it always be this way.

 

[JoeJoe]

The only inherent difference between a man and a robot is the medium used. While one uses biological tissue the other uses a computer chip, yes the gap in complexity is large right now but there is no reason to think that it always be this way.

I partly disagree. A human develops over many years, wheras a robot is usually expected to function from one day to the next. A child's appreciation for music is different than that of an adult's, which again is different from an old person. And then what we like today differs from what we liked 30 years ago, let alone 100, 300 or 1000 years ago.

 

[stig]

The real question here is how do you create consciousness in a computer, and what exactly defines consciousness in us.

Stop and think to yourself about anything at all, and you'll quickly realize that what we perceive as consciousness must run deeper than mere processing capability. We have electrical signals running through the biological wires of our bodies, but how does that achieve self awareness? How does that create that inner voice in our minds? How does that create a sense of self? It's easy to create software that is wired to seem self aware, but does that software truly feel self aware? Does it have an inner voice?

If I were programming with the idea in mind to recreate the behavior of humanity, emotions, and self awareness, I suppose I would immediately divide up into high level controllers that mimic life. In essence, I would create a single controller for consciousness which is fed emotions, sight, sound, and likewise driven by a combination of fuzzy and pure logic. This artificial consciousness could theoretically mimic the human consciousness given enough computing power. But even then, is it truly self aware, or just coldly computing behavior and ideas. If it truly is self aware, what does that say about the simplicity of us? Is our self aware state merely an illusion?