Q&A: AI as a Musical Instrument
AI as a Musical Instrument
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I’ve been thinking about a philosophical question for quite a while, and I wanted to see what the Rabbi—being someone with a very high-level ability for conceptual analysis—would say about it:
Can an artificial intelligence program that creates songs be considered a musical instrument?
At first glance, there seems to be no reason to say no, since what’s the difference between that and an electric organ, where you press a button and a sound comes out?
I’d be happy to hear the Rabbi’s thoughts.
Thank you very much!🙂
Answer
You need to define what a musical instrument is. This is just a semantic question (unless you explain what the discussion is for).
In simple terms, a musical instrument is a device that a person plays, and it produces the music.
And regarding AI,
the musical instrument does not create the melody; it only sounds it. The AI is perhaps the composer. The musical instrument is only the part that plays the melody on the computer, not the AI, which is the software that creates the melody. But even that part is not really a musical instrument, but rather a playback device, like a radio or tape player.
So I really would not define it as a musical instrument.