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The composer of the theme music marking the 22nd anniversary of Shanghai Grand Theater is, to say the least, not your usual conservatory graduate. More like something out of science fiction.
In a first, the theater commissioned a birthday song written by a machine. The song “Hope” was a joint creation of an artificial intelligence system called Xiaoice and pop singer and producer Zhu Jingxi, who performed the song at its public unveiling last week.
Xiaoice, an AI system developed by Microsoft, relies on an emotional computing framework based on algorithms, cloud computing and Big Data. It has its own on-screen avatar — a girl student. Its composition function began to be developed four years ago. At this stage, Xiaoice can compose music of varied genres, from pop and folk to electronic.
Read more in Shanghai Daily
