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An artificial intelligence has performed with the BBC Philharmonic orchestra for the first time.

In Robert Laidlow’s new composition, Silicon, different AI algorithms were used to help create each of the piece’s three movements, which the orchestra performed at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, UK, on 29 October. “We’re so entangled with intelligent technology that I wanted to tackle this subject in my music,” says Laidlow, whose PhD explores this topic.

For Silicon’s first movement, Laidlow used an AI called to generate sheet music. For the second movement, he contacted the team behind an AI music project called , whose technology he used to transform notes into different orchestral sounds. “It doesn’t always work perfectly,” says Laidlow, creating all these “weird, bow-like sounds”.  For the final movement, an AI called was trained to generate raw audio using 20 years of BBC Philharmonic orchestra performances. While this algorithm did produce “wonderful orchestral sounds”, says Laidlow, it also unexpectedly replicated the presenter and audience sounds. It started “morphing into applause, almost like it was clapping itself”, he says.

The project aims to explore ways to incorporate technology into the creative process. “I have no interest in just showing off technology for the sake of it,” says Laidlow, “but anything that pushes us to think in a different way is really, genuinely valuable.”