The idea that Gregorian melodies are constructed from some vocabulary of segments has long been a part of chant scholarship. This so-called "centonisation" theory has received much musicological criticism, but frequent re-use of certain melodic segments has been observed in chant melodies, and the intractable number of possible segmentations allowed the option that some undiscovered segmentation exists that will yet prove the value of centonisation, and recent empirical results have shown that segmentations can outperform music-theoretical features in mode classification. Inspired by the fact that Gregorian chant was memorised, we search for an optimal unsupervised segmentation of chant melody using nested hierarchical Pitman-Yor language models. The segmentation we find achieves state-of-the-art performance in mode classification. Modeling a monk memorising the melodies from one liturgical manuscript, we then find empirical evidence for the link between mode classification and memory efficiency, and observe more formulaic areas at the beginnings and ends of melodies corresponding to the practical role of modality in performance. However, the resulting segmentations themselves indicate that even such a memory-optimal segmentation is not what is understood as centonisation.

On a side street outside the headquarters of the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology in the center of London on Monday, 20 or so protesters are getting their chants in order. When do we want it?" These protesters are part of Pause AI, a group of activists petitioning for companies to pause development of large AI models which they fear could pose a risk to the future of humanity. Other PauseAI protests are taking place across the globe: In San Francisco, New York, Berlin, Rome, Ottawa, and a handful of other cities. Their aim is to grab the attention of voters and politicians ahead of the AI Seoul Summit--a follow-up to the AI Safety Summit held in the UK in November 2023. But the loosely organized group of protesters itself is still figuring out exactly the best way to communicate its message. "The Summit didn't actually lead to meaningful regulations," says Joep Meindertsma, the founder of PauseAI. The attendees at the conference agreed to the "Bletchley Declaration," but that agreement doesn't mean much, Meindertsma says. "It's only a small first step, and what we need are binding international treaties." The group's main demand is for a pause on the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4--it's calling for all countries to implement this measure, but specifically calls out the United States as the home of most leading AI labs. The group also wants all UN member states to sign a treaty that sets up an international AI safety agency with responsibility for granting new deployments of AI systems and training runs of large models. Their protests are taking place on the same day as OpenAI announced a new version of ChatGPT to make the chatbot act more like a human. "We have banned technology internationally before," says Meindertsma, pointing to the Montreal Protocol, a global agreement finalized in 1987 that saw the phaseout of CFCs and other chemicals known to deplete the ozone layer. "We've got treaties that ban blinding laser weapons.

"thwop," "muah" and "boop" are some of the sounds made by Humpback Whales. This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. From the "boing" of a minke whale to the "drum" of a red piranha, scientists are documenting more sounds in our world's oceans, rivers and lakes every year. Now, a team of experts wants to go a step further and create a reference library of aquatic noise to monitor the health of marine ecosystems. The Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds (GLUBS) will include every "thwop," "muah" and "boop" of a humpback whale, as well as human-made underwater sounds and records of the geophysical swirl of ice and wind, according to a paper in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

After working in the home, as an assistant at various stores, and as a waiter, SoftBank's humanoid robot Pepper is adding Buddhist priest to the list of careers the robot can take on. Pepper can chant sutras in a computerized voice while hitting a drum, reports Reuters, as detailed at the creepily-named Life Ending Industry Expo in Tokyo. The company Nissei Eco wrote the software for the Buddhist chants and said because of Japan's shrinking and aging population, Buddhists priests weren't getting as much monetary support from the community and have to work other jobs away from temple to make ends meet. Pepper's abilities were developed so it could hold funerals when there weren't any Buddhist priests readily available. That, and using a robot is much cheaper -- about $350 compared to $2,200 for a human priest, if you don't value genuine human sentiments for the loss of your loved ones.

A visionary performance in Armenia will feature a live, AI-composed orchestral score, performed by musicians from around the world. The World Congress of Information Technology (WCIT) has announced that it will be hosting its first concert to be composed entirely by artificial intelligence. The innovative outdoor concert takes place in Armenia as part of the organisation's opening ceremony, and will be performed by the'World Orchestra'. Specially formed for the event, the orchestra has been made up of more than 100 professional musicians – including 75 from orchestras in the 14 countries that previously hosted WCIT, and 30 from the Armenia State Symphony Orchestra. The unique ensemble will be led by Sergey Smbatyan, a virtuoso violinist and Principal Conductor of the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, who also came up with the idea for the show.