AI’nt Heard Enough

Idea

The great classical composer Schubert left a single work unfinished when he died. Even in this state, its beauty shines through, and is rightfully considered an incredible work in its own right.
 
Still, it’s not hard for fans of his work to wonder ‘what could have been’… what feelings that might have been stirred had we been able to hear the symphony completed.

Well, thanks to the power of AI we need wonder no longer.
 
There’s some pretty nifty AI on the latest handset from Huawei you see – and to draw media attention to that fact the brand used it to analyse the timbre, pitch and meter of the existing parts of the unfinished symphony, and then generate a melody for the final two movements that were never finished.
 
This was then arranged by an award-winning composer into a score that could be performed by an orchestra. One just like the English Session Orchestra, who launched it to the world.

What We Like

Last week, IW wrote about a humorous application of tech (that was the absurd bed from XXX that you can read about here). So we couldn’t be more pleased to share a campaign that does the flipside of this – and uses a brands tech for a worthier purpose.
 
What works about this campaign in particular though is that the tech has unlocked something in culture that was previously beyond our grasp. Yes, it’s amazing when you are able to look at musical works scored entirely by an AI, or gaze upon an AI-produced work of art.  But ultimately, those works are not solving any real-world problem. They’re diverting, and no more.
 
AI in this context has not only solved a problem – which is the baseline for this type of activity. But fulfilled a dream.