I've created some similar projects of my own, studied with the leading professor in this field (see my other comment), wrote an ebook about this topic, and been

I've created some similar projects of my own, studied with the leading professor in this field (see my other comment), wrote an ebook about this topic, and been keeping an eye on this field for years. tldr: artificial intelligence is much more artificial than intelligent. nearly every project of this nature illustrates how much easier it is to write narrow AI than general AI, even though any AI which produced complete musical works would be a very narrow example of general AI. it is much, much easier to write very specifically-targeted stuff that can perform a few useful tricks than it is to write an actual "composer." this particular example features a Max/MSP patch designed to turn a very specific database of samples into a very specific style of ambient music. every time I see anything about this topic on HN, I kind of end up being a bit of a killjoy about it, because the reality is that it is very, very common for people to overhype their results in this context. I've probably been guilty of this myself, in the past. it's definitely possible to write very satisfying and effective music-generating code, but there is almost never an incredibly deep lesson to learn about the nature of consciousness there. there ARE very, very often incredibly deep and specific lessons to learn about the inner workings of particular musical forms. I wrote a drum-and-bass drum pattern generator which made me much, much better at writing drum patterns by hand afterwards. one of the professors I studied with (briefly) wrote an amazing fuzzy logic counterpoint generator which allowed him to, effectively, improvise entire concertos, and I'm reasonably confident he learned an enormous amount about classical counterpoint in the process. (note that "improvise entire concertos" means "play a MIDI wind controller, improvise a tune, and have his software generate appropriate harmonic accompaniment." the overhyping tendency bit me even as I was warning you about it.) likewise, I think the author of this nautil.us post learned an enormous amount about what makes ambient music work well. and probably got much better at working in Max/MSP. but this is not Skynet shit. this is not proof of the rise of machine consciousness. this is intricately technical work which develops your skill in programming and musical composition. that's really all there is to it.