AI in Music Studies

Forskarkonferens

AIMS: The First International Conference in AI Music Studies

December 10-12 2024 Stockholm, Sweden

Prospects, Challenges and Methodologies of Studying AI Music in the Humanities and Social Sciences

AI music (music generated by or with artificial intelligence technologies) is now part of established music ecosystems. While only a few years ago such music was “on the fringe”, it is quickly becoming more present and moving into the mainstream due in large part to the commercial exploitability of the technology, what it produces for what it costs, and its growing public accessibility (complete with claims of “democratizing” music production and composition). The development and application of AI to music creation is attracting significant sums of money from private circles, not to mention considerable efforts in academic engineering circles; yet, perhaps with the exception of intellectual property (e.g., legal ownership) and ethics (e.g., responsible use), many topics of AI music remain by and large under-explored by critical examination and reflection in the humanities and social sciences. This motivates several key questions for critical analysis and reflection:

1. How can the AI music ecosystem and its components be formally studied, and what considerations must be made to make sense of it?
2. What challenges arise in the application of established disciplines, such as musicology or ethnomusicology?
3. What are the prospects and challenges for AI Music Studies for the Humanities and Social Sciences in general?
4. What is needed in terms of new methodologies for this area of study, and what interdisciplinary connections are required?
5. How are copyright, and intellectual property more generally, being challenged by the emergent music ecosystem being populated by AI music?
6. What are the implications of AI Music in terms of economic, environmental and sociocultural sustainability?
7. What are perspectives from music ecosystems other than the hegemonial popular music ecosystem of the Global North?
8. What are the positions of music cultures that so far remained largely outside of the digitalization of cultural data?

The First International Conference in AI Music Studies 2024 explores the prospects, challenges and new methodologies required for the study of AI music within the Humanities and Social Sciences. It aims to bring into conversation scholars working in music computing, musicology, ethnomusicology, sound studies, science and technology studies, philosophy, ethics, economics, feminist and posthumanist studies to help define and develop, or even challenge the need for, a discipline of AI music studies. Further motivation for this conference comes from: B. L. T. Sturm, K. Déguernel, R. S. Huang, A. Holzapfel, O. Bown, N. Collins, J. Sterne, L. Cros Vila, L. Casini, D. Alberto Cabrera, E. A. Drott, and O. Ben-Tal, “MusAIcology: AI Music and the Need for a New Kind of Music Studies Länk till annan webbplats..” SocArXiv, 2024; and B. L. T. Sturm, K. Déguernel, R. Stacy Huang, A.-K. Kaila, P. Jääskeläinen, E. Kanhov, L. Cros Vila, D. C. Dalmazzo, L. Casini, O. R. Bown, N. Collins, E. Drott, J. Sterne, A. Holzapfel, and O. Ben-Tal “AI Music Studies: Preparing for the Flood Länk till annan webbplats.”, in Proc. AI Music Creativity, 2024.

Financial support for the conference comes from:

1. Riksbankens Jubileumsfond Länk till annan webbplats.
2. Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien Länk till annan webbplats.
3. ERC-2019-COG No. 864189 MUSAiC: Music at the Frontiers of Artificial Creativity and Criticism Länk till annan webbplats.