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Ai Composer Bias: Listeners Like Music Less When They Think It Was Composed by an Ai
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied
  • Daniel Burton Shank, Missouri University of Science and Technology
  • Courtney Stefanik
  • Cassidy Stuhlsatz
  • Kaelyn Kacirek
  • Amy M. Belfi, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Abstract

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to compose music is becoming mainstream. Yet, there is a concern that listeners may have biases against AIs. Here, we test the hypothesis that listeners will like music less if they think it was composed by an AI. In Study 1, participants listened to excerpts of electronic and classical music and rated how much they liked the excerpts and whether they thought they were composed by an AI or human. Participants were more likely to attribute an AI composer to electronic music and liked music less that they thought was composed by an AI. In Study 2, we directly manipulated composer identity by telling participants that the music they heard (electronic music) was composed by an AI or by a human, yet we found no effect of composer identity on liking. We hypothesized that this was due to the "AI-sounding" nature of electronic music. Therefore, in Study 3, we used a set of "human-sounding" classical music excerpts. Here, participants liked the music less when it was purportedly composed by an AI. We conclude with implications of the AI composer bias for understanding perception of AIs in arts and aesthetic processing theories more broadly.

Department(s)
Psychological Science
Comments
Intelligent Systems Center, Grant None
Keywords and Phrases
  • Aesthetics,
  • Algorithms,
  • Artificial intelligence,
  • Liking,
  • Music
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2023 American Psychological Association, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
1-1-2022
Publication Date
01 Jan 2022
Citation Information
Daniel Burton Shank, Courtney Stefanik, Cassidy Stuhlsatz, Kaelyn Kacirek, et al.. "Ai Composer Bias: Listeners Like Music Less When They Think It Was Composed by an Ai" Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied (2022) ISSN: 1076-898X
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/amy-belfi/31/