Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming every facet of our economy. And now it has extended its growing reach into the DJ booth.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Ford Fiesta,the Detroit automaker tapped acclaimed London-based DJ/producer/turntablist DJ Yoda to create a live set of music spanning the past four decades. The catch? He had to do it withDJ YuMI, a collaborative robot working on the company’s assembly line.
In the video below, Yoda says that the biggest challenge “was to try and teach robot coders rhythm because that’s not what they do… to try and get them to drum a beat out or scratch on time that’s not something that’s in their vocabulary.”
He adds, “I love DJing in situations that are different. My whole thing with DJing is taking it out of the club at one in the morning on a Friday night. I’m all about collaborating with orchestras or robots or DJing in a library or somewhere unexpected.”
This isn’t the first time the company has worked with a DJ. In 2015, Ford tapped Motor City techno icon Kevin Saunderson to record sounds at one of its plants.
Here’s hoping Yoda’s experiment doesn’t put him out of a job.