This is the wrong idea. Of course a machine can recreate Aphex Twin with perfect fidelity, just like, unfortunately, a monkey can recreate a Jackson Pollock.
But a machine does not yet have the capacity to lay its finger on the cultural pulse and create something new and slightly different that strikes a resonating cord, pulls people in a new direction, makes them grow, because in addition to having a certain algorithmic description, the music they are making also betrays a certain darkness, a blend of fear, grotesque and dissonance that is there, somewhere down inside us, and that we love despite its ugliness. Until a machine can discover this part of humanity and translate this roiling mass into music, it hasn't managed the same feat as Aphex Twin.
This is what makes music great, that it is born from a place that requires loving observation of humanity. Real creativity requires having insights about humans, representing them in art, and exposing your insight through a particular medium. The image itself, the sound, means nothing. It's the reception, the speaker, the meaning, that matters.
A machine has no place in society. It isn't "straight out of Compton". It CANNOT make music.
It does not matter. This is just a human using a tool to create music. It's identical to him playing the piano. The machine is not doing the work of making his music socially relevant, he is.
But a machine does not yet have the capacity to lay its finger on the cultural pulse and create something new and slightly different that strikes a resonating cord, pulls people in a new direction, makes them grow, because in addition to having a certain algorithmic description, the music they are making also betrays a certain darkness, a blend of fear, grotesque and dissonance that is there, somewhere down inside us, and that we love despite its ugliness. Until a machine can discover this part of humanity and translate this roiling mass into music, it hasn't managed the same feat as Aphex Twin.
This is what makes music great, that it is born from a place that requires loving observation of humanity. Real creativity requires having insights about humans, representing them in art, and exposing your insight through a particular medium. The image itself, the sound, means nothing. It's the reception, the speaker, the meaning, that matters.
A machine has no place in society. It isn't "straight out of Compton". It CANNOT make music.