Michael Norris Photo: Supplied
Michael Norris doesn't shy away from technology.
In fact one of his extra curricular activities - when not composing or teaching composing himself - is creating programs to help others get more realistic sounds out of the virtual instruments they write for when using computer composing software.
The Wellington based composer is talking to RNZ Concert's Bryan Crump ahead of the latest gig by one of the other things he helped to create, the new music ensemble, Stroma, performing experimental music for experimental movies at Wellington's Roxy Theatre.
Norris has himself carved out a niche with the film industry creating computer generated sounds that more realistically mimic what real instruments do, or when those instruments are sampled, enables them to play-back in a more realistic manner.
Crump asks if one day computer generated orchestras will become so realistic we won't need real ones anymore.
Norris says in the concert hall, having humans play music in real time, will always have more impact than a recording, but he acknowledges for things like movie soundtracks, computer generated orchestras will be a big part of the future.
It's likely, he says, that a lot of the soundtracks on Netflix or HBO are already played by a computer generated orchestra.
Yes, but can it show you what love is? Photo: 123RF/Alexander Limbach
Which leads to the question as to whether artificial intelligence will eventually - maybe sooner rather than later - start writing the music itself?
It's a question Norris discusses with his own composition students at Victoria University.
At present, artificial intelligence can use its ability to scan the digital worth to imitate what's been done before, but not to remake the rules as humans can.
Still, a film company may not care too much if the music to its latest blockbuster sounds much like any other blockbuster, a quite a few of Norris' students are hoping to get work writing for the screen.
Nick Cave, knows all about suffering. Photo: Matt Thorn
Norris argues human ability to create, to discover new ways of arranging sounds into music, still give people the edge over algorithms.
The best movie makers will still want sound tracks written by people.
Perhaps, Crump asks, AI is just a machine equivalent of the "assistants" many composers had to do menial tasks while they were at the creative coal-face.
Norris isn't so sure about that.
These days, composers work mostly alone, he says.
Crump quotes the songwriter Nick Cave's argument that while AI can mimic, it can't create anything new, because it can't feel like a human;
"...as far as I know, algorithms don’t feel. Data doesn’t suffer. ChatGPT has no inner being, it has been nowhere, it has endured nothing, it has not had the audacity to reach beyond its limitations".
Norris would tend to agree, but what if we could create algorithms that gave AI an ego, and a will?
