[djsbs]

“The machine stops” [1]written in 1909 has AI composing things (I forget if it was poetry or music)

Orwell’s 1984, written in the mid forties, has pop songs written by machine.

In both cases the AI composed works are described in the same way Id describe modern AI composing things - dreadful.

The concept of AI is quite old. Even Medieval Europe you had philosophers making quite penetrating insights on mechanical creativity. But, lacking a computer, there was no point continuing their train of thought

[1] amazing, far seeing, book. Very short, maybe a two hour read.

[wyattpeak]

I'm not saying the idea would be new to them, the idea of thinking machines had been around for a lot longer than that. I'm saying that the idea that modern text-generation is "zero progress on anything even remotely resembling Artificial Intelligence" would be absurd to them.

Jules Verne wrote about a trip to the moon. It doesn't follow that he would regard the NASA missions as old-hat.

[jimmaswell]

Some AI generated music certainly passes as normal music.