Looking Outwards 6

For this week I am talking about the YouTuber Answer in Progress, and her video “the science behind lofi music”. Lofi hip hop music has become popular in the late 2010s and early 2020s as background music for studying and gaming amongst Millennials and Gen Z. Answer in Progress sought to write an AI that could randomly produce lofi music. She gave the program a bunch of different drum and instrumental audio files and background noise, told it what frequencies and RPMs to play at that most lofi music plays at, and has the AI learn what notes should come after what other notes. Then her code should be able to produce a lofi song on its own. There are a few errors, including one song that just plays the same note over and over again, so the program does not produce a very sonically pleasing songs. It lacks an ear for what makes some notes and chords more pleasing than others that humans have, but its pretty impressive for randomly generated music with no human help.

the science behind lofi music