Chatbot that writes tunes is music to the ears of exam cheats
GOOGLE has designed a “chatbot” that can create music from text prompts amid warnings it could be used to cheat in exams.
Musiclm, an artificial intelligence (AI) model, generates “high-fidelity music” from simple captions, such as “a calming violin melody backed by a distorted guitar riff ”.
The captions instruct the model which instruments to include, the tempo of the music and its genre. One prompt, accompanied by a 30-second audio clip, reads: “A fusion of reggaeton and electronic dance music, with a spacey, otherworldly sound.
“Induces the experience of being lost in space, and the music would be designed to evoke a sense of wonder and awe, while being danceable.”
The researchers said the model “further extends the set of tools that assist humans with creative music tasks”.
Ian Pace, professor of music at City, University of London, described the music created by the model as “very generic” and “trite”. He warned there was a risk it could be used by music students
to cheat in exams. It comes after concerns were raised about CHATGPT, an AI chatbot which produces instant human-like answers to questions.
The exams watchdog said last month it would consider whether new guidance should be drawn up on how to prevent pupils cheating on coursework using the tool.
Musiclm seems to go further than CHATGPT, as it can transform intentions, stories or even paintings into songs.
The researchers used descriptions of famous paintings, such as Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory and Edvard Munch’s The Scream, to inspire audio based on the artworks.
Prof Pace said the platform, based on a data set of 5,000 music-text pairs, could have “big implications” for music education.
He said: “How are we to know when someone puts in their composition assignment, just like with their essay assignment, that they haven’t just … read whatever the task assignment is, typed it into the [software] and hey presto it’s produced. The result might be fine, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they would have learnt very much.”
He said the audio generated would “probably be enough to get a reasonable mark”. Prof Pace added: “Just like with CHATGPT, my feeling is that we need to rediscover the benefits of in-person exams, where you know the person is there and has to do the task themselves.”
“I think CHATGPT has opened up huge new questions for most education establishments. How do we know… that the people submitting it… have done anything more than feed it into this?”
Prof Pace said Musiclm was at a “very early stage” but could become a “big question” in music education.
The AI model will not be able to replace individual composers, Prof Pace said, but it could be used to produce music where “generic” results would suffice – such as in films and games.
A Google spokesman said it did not have immediate plans to provide direct access to the model. He added: “We hope that Musiclm will spark creativity, leading to exciting new ways for people to create music.”