We present a graphic novel project aiming at illustrating current research results and issues regarding the creative process and its relation with artificial intelligence. The main character, Max Order, is an artist who symbolizes the difficulty of coming up with new, creative ideas, giving up imitation of others and finding one's own style.

Last year computer scientists unveiled the first song to be composed by artificial intelligence, the Beatles-esque ditty'Daddy's Car'. But it's not the first sign of AI infiltrating music-making – from self-generating soundtracks to unique albums created on demand, the robots are on the march. Jack Needham asks if we're ready for the AI revolution to reach our ears. When we think of the early relationship between humans, machines and music, we might think of Kraftwerk's analog pop or Delia Derbyshire's Radiophonic soundscapes – yet our fascination with machine music goes back much further than that. Late last year, University of Canterbury professor Jack Copeland and composer Jason Long restored the first piece of recorded machine music created in 1951 by Alan Turing, the British mathematician and artificial intelligence pioneer. The single-sided 12" acetate disc captures three melodies played by a primitive computer that filled most of the ground floor of Turing's laboratory.

Late last year, a team of Sony researchers based in Paris released a pair of new pop songs. One, called "Daddy's Car," straightforwardly echoed the soft '60s psychedelia of The Beatles; the other, "Mr. Shadow," was an electro-ish update on classic jazz à la Duke Ellington or Cole Porter. The songs were just fine (if that), from a critical standpoint. What made them major events was the fact that they were composed using artificial intelligence, specifically using the Flow Machines software developed by Sony's Computer Science Laboratory.

A lot of DJs and music producers are starting to wonder how these technologies could be implemented in their fields. In this article, DJTT's Steven Maude takes deep dive into current AI music projects, and how they could change the process of music creation in the very near future. From language translation, self-driving cars, to beating humans at traditional games or learning to play classic games from the modern era, artificial intelligence (AI) is a big deal in computer science right now. Thanks to the large data stores that, for better or worse, technology giants are collecting, and powerful graphics cards accelerating the math required, we're in a time of rapid progress in diverse fields. The natural question for DJs and producers: what are the possible implications for AI in music? But big technology names have looked at applying artificial intelligence techniques to music creation.

Feature AI are often seen as cold, calculating machines, devoid of any warmth or humanity. One way to make AI more relatable and human-like could be encouraging them to take part in human activities like making music. Using AI is one of the geekiest ways to make tunes, and has been around since the 80s. It's a thriving area of research with dedicated academic conferences. And with the recent boom in machine learning, it also means the quality of music created by AI seems to be getting better too.