The Uncanny Muse

Music, Art, and Machines from Automata to AI

De: David Hajdu

Narrado por: L.J. Ganser

The Uncanny Muse explores the history of automation in the arts and delves into one of the most momentous and controversial aspects of AI: artificial creativity. The adoption of technology and machinery has long transformed the world, but as the potential for artificial intelligence expands, David Hajdu examines the new, increasingly urgent questions about technology's role in culture.

Hajdu traces the fascinating, varied ways in which inventors and artists have sought to emulate mental processes and mechanize creative production. For decades, machines and artists have engaged in expressing the human condition—along with the condition of living with machines—through player pianos, broadcasting technology, electric organs, digital movie effects, synthesizers, and motion capture. By communicating and informing human knowledge, the machines have exerted considerable influence on the history of art—and often more influence than humans have been willing to recognize. As Hajdu proclaims: "before machine learning, there was machine teaching." With thoughtful and surprising turns from Berry Gordy and George Harrison to Andy Warhol and Stevie Wonder, David Hajdu takes a novel and contrarian approach: he sees how machines through the ages have enabled creativity, not stifled it—and The Uncanny Muse sees no reason why this shouldn't be the case with AI today.

©2025 David Hajdu (P)2025 Tantor Media

Inspiring For AI Artists and Musicians

I really liked the comprehensive history of the place of machines in music and art history over the past century and a half. I work with AI art and found the questions and thoughts on machine art very inspiring to me. That being said, I think the author should have connected with people who use programs such as Midjourney as a tool to explore creativity. Of course there is mostly very uninspiring stuff coming out of these programs but there is also some exciting and excellent work as well. For a real artist, a tool like Midjourney is very freeing. I love collaborating with Midjourney myself to create. I also loved the sections about synthesized music. I learned a lot. This book was very well written and informative. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in using machines/AI to create.