How A.I. Is Creating Building Blocks to Reshape Music and Art

In the mid-1990s, Douglas Eck worked as a database programmer in Albuquerque while moonlighting as a musician. After a day spent writing computer code inside a lab run by the Department of Energy, he would take the stage at a local juke joint, playing what he calls "punk-influenced bluegrass" -- "Johnny Rotten crossed with Johnny Cash." But what he really wanted to do was combine his days and nights, and build machines that could make their own songs. "My only goal in life was to mix A.I. and music," Mr. Eck said. It was a naïve ambition.