Matt Jones

Link Notes 30 April 2020

Toy Robots Attribution: DJ Shin · CC BY-SA 3.0

OpenAI’s Jukebox AI produces music in any style from scratch — complete with lyrics

https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/30/openais-jukebox-ai-produces-music-in-any-style-from-scratch-complete-with-lyrics/

This is a project that uses machine learning to make music - in various styles, with instruments and with people singing lyrics - with no human intervention. The software analyses songs by real artists, learns from them, how they sound and how they are stuctured and then creates new music. As you can hear it’s not quite up to the standard of Lennon and McCartney… yet.


What if Covid-19 Returns Every Year, Like the Common Cold?

https://www.wired.com/story/what-if-covid-19-returns-every-year-like-the-common-cold/

The SARS-CoV-2 (otherwise known as COVID-19) virus is related to other Coronaviruses that that cause other serious diseases like SARS and MERS, and not so serious diseases like the Common Cold.

It’s notable that while the world waits for a vaccine for COVID-19 to be developed, we still don’t have a vaccine any of the other Coronaviruses, including the ones that cause the serious SARS and MERS diseases.