Artificially Intelligent Guitar Able To “Tune Itself,” Destroy Human Civilization

jharv | November 14, 2007 10:40 am
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Well, those meddling scientists at Gibson have finally done it, creating “an electric guitar that not only keeps itself in tune even after string changes but also allows players to access six nonstandard tunings at the push of a button.” And soon these autonomous guitars will replace students and professionals alike, possibly before coming together to instigate World War III, which will at least have a killer (and in-tune!) soundtrack.

Gibson says the robot guitar is aimed at amateurs who have a hard time keeping their guitars in tune, as well as professionals who now use technicians during concerts to keep about 100 guitars tuned to different keys.

“Professional guitar players use a lot of different tuning and people who listen to the stars wonder why they can’t reproduce the same sound themselves,” Juszkiewicz said.

Well, it is hard, remembering things. Like pornography passwords and multiplication tables and guitar tunings. Plus why should guitar techs be any different than people working on auto assembly or check-out lines? But not everyone looks forward to a future of evil musical instruments that think and act on their own accord.

“I’m sorry, this is just lazy. With stuff like this, tuning is going to be a lost skill,” wrote LettheBassPlay on the www.ultimate-guitar.com Web site forum.

Just lazy? Or deadly?

First Robot Guitar Tunes Itself [Reuters]