AMI Research Award for Chris Detweiler

Professor in Philosophy and Professional Practice, Chris Detweiler, has been awarded the Artists + Machine Intelligence (AMI) Research Award for his research project 'Sociotechnical Considerations of AI in Music Technology'. With this research award, Google's AMI programme supports research in the arts and social sciences that focuses on machine learning and its impact on society. The awards are granted every year to five researchers.

'For a number of years now, artificial intelligence has been giving musicians entirely new opportunities in production, performance and reproduction. This provides not only a creative challenge, but also has consequences for the profession of musician. I'm researching these changes and trying to extend the effects to other creative professions,’ explains Chris. 

Designers and developers

Not only musicians, but also designers and developers of artificial intelligence and its applications play an important role. ‘With their creation and production, they directly influence the possibilities for a musician. For example, there are programmes that compose music and that are actually completely Western-oriented. That means it will not produce any Arabic-sounding music, because those notes haven't been programmed. That is why I am also developing tools for designers and developers so that they can consider the consequences of their work,’ adds Chris.

Planning

Chris would like to bring his findings back into education. ‘I think that students from Applied Data Science & AI, HBO-ICT and Communication & Multimedia design degree programmes can really use this knowledge. It's important that they become aware of what their ideas and work can generate.’ 

Thanks to the AMI Research Award, Chris can add another year of depth to the project. In this year, he will focus more on the people using the technology. ‘As this research is being done as part of Google's AMI programme, I can use their network of musicians and artists. That's great, of course. Who knows who I will run into!’