The Missing Half of Music History | Gabriella Di Laccio | TED

Overview

Gabriella Di Laccio explores the overlooked contributions of women composers throughout history and the implications of their absence in shaping our musical heritage. She highlights the role of artificial intelligence in perpetuating these gaps and calls for action to ensure all voices are represented in the evolving musical landscape.

Notable Quotes

- Who decides which voices survive? – Gabriella Di Laccio, questioning the historical erasure of women composers.

- The systems can only learn from the data available to them. But, right now that data is missing half of humanity's creativity. – Gabriella Di Laccio, on the biases in AI-generated music.

- What gets heard is chosen, and those choices will shape what the future will remember. – Gabriella Di Laccio, emphasizing the power of representation in music.

🎼 The Erasure of Women Composers

- Gabriella shares her discovery of an encyclopedia listing 6,000 women composers, a stark contrast to her prior knowledge of only five.

- She highlights the historical neglect of women’s contributions to music, exemplified by Comtessa de Dia, whose melody is the only surviving work by a woman from medieval southern France.

- This erasure has led to a significant gap in our understanding of music history and culture.

📊 Gender Bias in Music and AI

- Nearly 90% of the music we hear across genres is written by men, creating a skewed representation of creativity.

- AI systems, which learn from existing data, are perpetuating this imbalance by being trained on incomplete musical catalogs.

- Gabriella warns that this technological bias risks further silencing underrepresented voices in music.

🌍 Building a More Inclusive Musical Archive

- Gabriella founded a growing database of women composers, now documenting over 18,000 names, to address this gap.

- She emphasizes the importance of recording and sharing music by underrepresented voices to make it accessible for teaching, streaming, and AI training.

- Her call to action includes urging tech companies profiting from AI music to invest in completing the musical catalog.

🎵 The Power of Music to Preserve Stories

- Gabriella recounts the story of Ilse Weber, a poet and singer who wrote songs in a Nazi ghetto, some of which survived because her husband buried her manuscripts.

- This story underscores music’s ability to preserve human experiences and the importance of ensuring all voices are remembered.

🤖 The Responsibility of AI in Music Creation

- Gabriella advocates for musicians, not machines, to create music, emphasizing the soul and humanity in artistic expression.

- She calls for ethical AI practices, including proper consent and remuneration for artists whose work informs AI-generated music.

- Her vision is for AI to learn from a complete and diverse musical history, ensuring it reflects the creativity of all humanity.