Research and education surrounding AI and its future are vital as the world continues to develop and integrate new technologies into everything we do. Just as important as this research, are conversations about the different aspects of life and art that AI is impacting. Philosophy professor Thomas Hofweber (FFP ’15, ’25) and music professor and historian Mark Katz (FFP ’12, ALP ’13) are working to begin these conversations and provide space for them to occur.
In April, the professors plan to host an event centered around exploring AI’s impact on music historically and evaluating what place AI might have in music. The event will take an interdisciplinary approach, involving perspectives from within the music industry and various fields.
Katz said Hofweber approached him with the idea for this event, after they sat on a panel together and noted his former interest on the topic.
“We’ve been making plans for it,” said Katz, who is also a former director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities. Though plans are being finalized, it will consist of some presentations, a roundtable discussion, and include some music they want to solicit from students.
He added that they would encourage students to create music through generative AI, then listen to it and have a conversation about it and the process.
Katz also said that he believes Hofweber’s idea to bring in scholars from all different backgrounds would allow the event to take a holistic, complimentary and more interesting form.
“We thought we’d put together an event that has speakers and panels with people from different disciplines, and hopefully get a conversation going about this topic, where people participate [with] different perspectives,” Hofweber said.
He also said that the workshop could also lead to other potential interdisciplinary projects.
“The question is what kind of value is there to AI-generated art?” Hofweber said. “Will humans properly appreciate it? Is there anything to be appreciated about it? And something I’m especially interested in: is it potentially possible to create art that is of greater aesthetic value than the art that has been created by humans so far?”
Hofweber, who is a part of this spring’s Faculty Fellowship cohort, said he will use his time to focus on exploring how to further understand rational norms, like humans have, in language models. His project centers around questioning if language models are more similar or more different than us, and if they have human like ways of thinking.
“If the norms of rationality apply, then you can expect, or at least hope for, a certain kind of behavior that’s tied to these rational norms,” he said. “But if they don’t apply, then these machine learning models, particularly if you think of them as engaging in some sort of activity, would be quite different than our human mind.”
He added that he appreciated the time the Faculty Fellowship gives, allowing him to focus on his research and to discuss ideas with people from other parts of the humanities and the University.
“You get time off from your teaching, you focus more on your research, and you meet all these other people from other parts of the humanities and the university to talk about projects, so you learn what other people are doing.” Hofweber said. “You meet other people across campus. You have lunch together. It’s a great thing. I recommend it.”
Katz agreed, saying that the fellowship really strengthened his work, and he enjoyed getting feedback from people who are looking at and thinking about his work from different perspectives.
Katz said that the event is scheduled for April 25, although the details of the program are still being fleshed out.
This story was originally published by the Institute for the Arts & Humanities on February 24, 2025.