University of Toronto researchers create an AI that writes auto-tuned holiday carols

It seems not even handsome crooners like Michael Bublé will be safe from the effects of automation.

Late last month, a team of researchers from the University of Toronto unveiled an artificial intelligence that is able to write and sing holiday carols using a single image for inspiration.

To create the AI, the team subjected a neural network to one hundred hours of online holiday music (good thing machines don’t have rights, amirite?). Following its crash course in Christmas carols, the AI is able to compose a simple 120 BPM tune when given a musical scale and melodic profile to work with. A second neural network creates the song’s lyrics after looking at an image — In this case, a picture of a Christmas tree.

Neural Story Singing Christmas from Hang Chu on Vimeo.

“It’s about what can deep learning do these days to make life more fun?” said Sanja Fidler, one of the individuals that worked on the project.

Our robotic overlords are here and they’re ready to make the holiday shopping season even more hellish.

[source] Nvidia [/source][via] Engadget [/via]