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Mere mortals delight in learning the creative processes of the greatest minds. How romantic to imagine Beethoven painstakingly counting precisely 60 beans into his daily coffee. How eccentric for Truman Capote to refuse to begin or end any work on a Friday, and how luxurious that Edith Wharton wrote in bed and dropped papers to the floor for her servants to organise.

Dr Cat Gale agrees. “The spark of an idea — we do consider that to be uniquely human,” she says. It’s a surprising admission from a woman who has spent the past year enlisting scientists across Europe to produce a musical that has been conceived, and almost entirely created, by computers.

The project initially aimed to explore whether research and data analysis could uncover the recipe for the perfect musical, “and then we just went a step further and thought, ‘If we’re going to do all of that then why not try to make one?’”

Dr Gale (or should we call her Dr Frankenstein?), with no experience in theatre, embarked on an experiment to produce a hit musical using algorithms and computer systems, and document the process for Sky Arts.

The idea that computer programmes could create art is more than a little disconcerting, particularly for those of us who convince ourselves that our jobs are too creative to be at risk from the inevitable robotic takeover. But Beyond the Fence, “the world’s first computer musical”, opens on February 22 for a 15-night run at the Arts Theatre in the West End.

If you saw last year’s chilling film Ex Machina, which features a scene where the two central characters discuss Jackson Pollock in the context of artificial intelligence, the prospect might just be too much to bear. (Incidentally, I would save Ex Machina for after you’ve been to the theatre or you might be on the edge of your seat for the wrong reasons).

At the heart of the project is the What-If Machine, based at Goldsmiths College, University of London. It functions as the imagination stage of the creative process: the point when inspiration strikes but before it is moulded into art, literature or music. The moment when George Orwell pondered what would happen if animals realised their own strength.

The machine was fed the results of an extensive data analysis — a sort of hi-tech market research project into the elements of a successful musical. Scientists at Cambridge University looked at the components of hundreds of musicals, from aspects of production including the star power of the cast, the gender of the lead or the size of the venue, to narrative themes, critical reception and how long the show ran for. The machine then distorted the information to invent fictional outcomes and new ideas.

One of the scientists at the helm of the machine, Dr Maria Teresa Llano Rodriguez, explains: “We are used to machines being used as tools that do not have a high level of cognitive ability, so it’s difficult for people to think of them as being able to exhibit truly creative behaviour.”

This is an area of scientific research known as computational creativity, where systems are built to collaborate with, rather than be operated by, humans.

At this point I can’t help but remember Dr Ian Malcolm’s warning in Jurassic Park: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

Dr Gale reassures me: “The reason that [the scientists] do this work isn’t to create systems which aim to replace people.

“Their goal is in trying to create systems that can do something similar to us, so that they can understand how we do it.”

And while the What-If Machine might be able to throw out a radical idea, it still relies on humans to supply it with initial information and interpret the ideas it generates. At this stage, none of the individual systems used in the creative process can talk to each other and there has to be a human element.

I’m inclined to feel relieved that the computers still need a (human) helping hand, and Dr Gale pounces on this as an opportunity to observe how creatives — her collaborators, composer Benjamin Till and his husband, writer and actor Nathan Taylor — find working with machine-generated content.

Language proved to be the greatest challenge, and the book and lyrics were the main areas where a human touch was absolutely necessary.

The team believes that the technology is not far away but currently systems tend to work in the abstract, and their output must be contextualised.

For example, anyone with a Mac can create an electronic beat on Garage Band but a musical score calls for narrative heart.

Beyond the Fence uses Android Lloyd Webber, a composition system created by Dr Nick Collins at Durham University, which uses specific analysis of musical theatre soundtracks to create melodies most suited to the genre. Till and Taylor then arranged this into a score.

It’s a true collaboration between man and machine. Perhaps not as romantic as a flash of inspiration, the click-clack of typewriter keys and carefully inscribed sheet music, but times are changing.

There’s even a musical opening on Broadway in April, aptly called Nerds, which tells the story of the rivalry between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and which reportedly involves an interactive app that will allow the audience to have a say in the ending.

In 2011, Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet (the new parent company of Google), warned against the limitations of sorting children at an early age into “either a luvvie or a boffin”, and everyone involved in Beyond the Fence is challenging this binary.

Dr Gale's background is in science — a degree in microbiology and a PhD in virology — but she was a musical child and speaks passionately against the segregation of science and the arts at school level.

“It sort of insinuates that creativity belongs to only half of people and it’s a really reductive way to be thinking about things. There’s an awful lot to be gained from looking across the spectrum and cross-pollinating.

“In order to design a great experiment you’ve got to think very, very creatively. And likewise, to put on a musical, as I’m learning, you have to be really analytical, really logical, really practical, very organised.”

So could we, as consumers of art, honestly be moved by something that has been created by ones and zeros rather than human ingenuity? And could we even tell the difference?

Dr Gale and her team won’t find out until opening night. “We honestly don’t know how people will respond. If they come and have a brilliant night out because it’s a great story with fantastic songs, and have a bit of escapism, that’s great.

“But equally, if you have a nitty-gritty conversation with someone in the bar at the interval about artificial intelligence and creativity and whether it is automatable, then that’s pretty brilliant too.”

Beyond The Fence is at the Arts Theatre, WC2 (020 7836 8463) from February 22 to March 5. Computer Says Show will be broadcast on Sky Arts on February 25.

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