The pop hits of the future might be written not by human musicians, but by machine-learning algorithms that have learned the rules of catchy music, and apply them to create never-before-heard melodies. Those tunes may not even require human hands to be heard, because a growing army of musical robots, from bagpipes to xylophones, can already play themselves—even improvise too.

[The reef is quiet. Too quiet…]

In this segment, recorded live at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Library of Homestead Music Hall, we talk with computer scientist Roger Dannenberg and artist-roboticist Eric Singer about the implications of computerized composition, and unveil a song created by AI. (We’ll let you judge whether it’s worthy of the top 40.)

Plus, roboticist Eric Singer taught his “GuitarBot” to play the Science Friday theme. Take a listen and watch more of these musical bots play tunes below!

Credit: Eric Singer

The midi song below was written by a computer. Try comparing two versions of the same song, one played by the computer and the other by a human band, the townsppl.

[Notes on composing for science.]

Credit: Eric Singer

Credit: Roger Dannenberg