Chinese Internet giant Baidu unveiled a new artificial intelligence program that reportedly can create music based on the art it sees.
The program, dubbed the Baidu AI Composer and which is currently in exhibition at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, creates its "compositions" by first scanning the image of a particular art piece and identifying various objects present in it, Tech in Asia reported. The AI then assigns a particular mood to the various color elements of the piece, such as passion for red and warmth for yellow.
Once it has finished mapping and assigning attributes to the various elements of the art piece, the program then goes through a database of musical scores. Each score in the collection has been broken down into smaller musical units that are categorized according to mood and attributes.
However, rather than just randomly pick units according to their labels, the AI composer feeds the labeled and categorized image data to a complex correlation matrix for the selection of the units. A correlation matrix is a table that shows the varying relationship between the labels and the musical units. By using the matrix, the program is able to create a unique musical piece every time.
For instance, one of the earliest compositions made by the composer was a soft and slow melodic piece that was based on artist Vincent Van Goth's painting Starry Night, The Stack reported. On the other hand, the AI created a faster beat for a Chinese watercolor painting of horses to convey the urgent movements shown in the art.
Baidu has increasingly been investing in the field of artificial intelligence in the last few years in an effort to diversify its revenue source. Just recently, the company unveiled three new artificial intelligence platforms that users of its Baidu Open Cloud can access for big data services. The company is also currently developing its first AI-controlled self-driving car.