Marimba playing robot can compose its own music

Having four arms would be an advantage for any musician, but they are just one of the many unique features of Shimon, the marimba playing robot. The machine has used its artificial intelligence and deep learning algorithms to analyse more than two million motifs, riffs and licks of music to create its own masterpiece. Aside from giving the machine the first four bars to use as a starting point, no humans are involved in either the composition or the performance of the music. Shimon (pictured) has used its artificial intelligence and deep learning algorithms to analyse over two million motifs, riffs and licks of music to create and perform its own masterpiece. Shimon is the creation of Mason Bretan, a PhD student at Georgia Tech, that uses eight sticks to play the wooden percussion instrument. He has worked with Shimon for seven years, enabling it to'listen' to music played by humans and improvise over composed chord progressions.