Throughout the years, pop culture has largely thought a future run by robots would be bleak, hopeless and dystopian. Today, artificial intelligence has infiltrated nearly every corner of our world, but the results haven’t been quite as dramatic: AI powers cars, kitchen appliances, and speakers, allowing users to work, move or relax easier.
Now, AI has a new use: creating soundtracks to our vacations.
Created by Royal Caribbean with help from Berklee College of Music, SoundSeeker is a new technology that uses AI to analyze photos and generate unique music based on the photo’s contents. Then, SoundSeeker combines this music with the photos to produce short, kaleidoscopic videos. Think of these as updated versions of the classic vacation slideshow.
The technology uses Google Cloud Vision to read the facial expressions, objects and colors in a photo. These are then used to determine what sort of music should be associated with the image. Someone smiling while riding a jet ski is likely to produce an upbeat, triumphant tune, while a serene view of the sunset will lead to something a little more mellow.
“It was an opportunity to think about how AI might fit in with what we do here at Berklee,” Electronic Production and Design Chair Michael Bierylo said. “It gave us… the opportunity to rethink some of the assumptions that we had about the connections between music and picture.”
The team at Berklee, which consisted of Bierylo and three other professors, were used as music consultants on the project. They helped determine which types of sounds, moods and musical cues should be associated with a variety of photo elements.
The Berklee professors worked with an international team to bring SoundSeeker to life. This included Unit9 and Plan8, which are based in London and Stockholm, respectively.
Right now, the SoundSeeker product is not limited to Royal Caribbean guests. Anyone can upload three photos to their website and create a short video.
