A team of programmers and songwriters from Australia have won the inaugural (and unofficial) AI ‘Eurovision Song Contest’, using a neural network trained on noises made by koalas, kookaburras, and Tasmanian devils to help score their winning entry.
The group, named Uncanny Valley, said their song was a response to the bushfire season that began ravaging Australia in June 2019. Scientists estimated that around a billion animals were killed by the fires (a figure that excludes insects, fish, frogs, and bats, but includes reptiles, birds, and mammals — including those sampled for the song).
The track, titled “Beautiful the World,” falls into the grand tradition of…