Cambridge Forum on AI: Culture and Society publishes research both about and produced with artificial intelligence (AI): research about the social and cultural implications of AI, studies employing AI to develop new methodologies for critical research, and research oriented to new interdisciplinary paradigms for AI. In so doing, the journal brings together social science, humanities and artistic (SSHA) research on epistemologies, histories and practices of AI with computer science and data science (STEM) AI research, casting light on how AI applications translate, undermine or advance the diversity of social and cultural values and lifeworlds.

Cambridge Forum on AI: Culture and Society is part of the Cambridge Forum journal series, which progresses cross-disciplinary conversations on issues of global importance.

The journal invites submissions for the upcoming Themed Issue: Music and AI: Towards Critical Interdisciplinary Studies, to be Guest Edited by Georgina Born. 

In the first instance, please submit an abstract of 500 words (excluding references) to the journal at cfc@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com and cc the editor, Georgina Born (g.born@ucl.ac.uk). If your abstract is accepted, you will be invited to submit a full paper. 

The deadline for submissions of abstracts is 20 January 2025.

The deadline for submissions of full papers is 1 May 2025. Submissions of full papers should be made through the journal's online peer review system. Authors should consult the journal’s author instructions prior to submission. 

All full papers will be peer reviewed in line with the journal’s review process. Acceptance of an abstract does not guarantee acceptance of the full paper.

Description

Music has a long, rich and evolving relationship with AI; it has hosted important developments in the sciences and philosophies of AI as well as musical experimentation with AI technologies. The relationship is apparent in the influence of cybernetics on music, the influential work of Marvin Minsky and Curtis Roads at MIT, the development of expert systems for composition and of interactive computer music, the burgeoning of the field of Music Information Retrieval, and the contemporary efflorescence of AI-influenced algorithmic music paradigms. On the one hand, AI has been linked to the long history of compositional formalisms dating back to the origins of polyphony. On the other hand, music’s embodied and performative dimensions reanimate classic critiques of AI in the terms of embodiment, materiality and human-machine interaction. Moreover, music has arguably fed wider AI-related currents, such as ubiquitous computing. Today, AI augurs – as did earlier music technologies –potentially vast transformations in the very nature of music. It has established a pervasive role in mediating the creation, production, curation, circulation and consumption of musical sound. 

Despite the global significance of the growing influence of AI on music, however, critical research in this area is relatively undeveloped when compared to both scientific and technological research and artistic projects. In this light, this issue of AICuSoc takes music as a medium through which to illuminate both the cultural implications of AI and AI itself as a form of cultural production. The issue aims to inaugurate a field of critical interdisciplinary studies of AI music that examines, through music, not only AI’s influence on culture but AI music as ‘practice and culture’ (Pickering). 

The issue seeks contributions based on critical research on, and critical practice-based research utilising, AI in relation to music, sound and listening. It will combine articles representing critical empirical studies of, conceptual reflection on, and/or practical experiments in AI music. In all cases, the ‘critical’ should be to the fore. We particularly encourage submissions that are interdisciplinary, and that come from early-career researchers. We invite contributions focusing on but not restricted to the following topics: 

• Critical Histories / Genealogies of AI Music
• AI Music and/as Interdisciplinary Praxis
• Interrogating the Scientific Status of Music Information Retrieval
• AI Music and Artistic Critique
• Critical Perspectives on Machine Listening
• Political economies of AI music
• AI Music at the Juncture of Industry and Academia
• Decolonizing AI Music
• Algorithmic Composition as/and Critique
• Critical Engagements between SSHA and STEM in AI Research on Music, Sound and Listening
• AI and New Ontologies of Music
• Creativity and AI Music
• Conceptualizing Value (Musical and Otherwise) in Relation to AI Music
• Future(s) of Music After AI Music

Submission guidelines

Cambridge Forum on AI: Culture and Society seeks to engage multiple subject disciplines and promote dialogue between policymakers and practitioners as well as academics. The journal therefore encourages authors to use an accessible writing style. 

Authors have the option to submit a range of article types to the journal. Please see the journal’s author instructions for more information.

Articles will be peer reviewed for both content and style. Articles will appear digitally and open access in the journal. 

All submissions should be made through the journal’s online peer review system. Author should consult the journal’s author instructions prior to submission.

All authors will be required to declare any funding and/or competing interests upon submission. See the journal’s Publishing Ethics guidelines for more information.

Contacts 

Questions regarding submission and peer review can be sent to the journal’s inbox at cfc@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com.