To: Be Continued Smart MIDI Controller for Novice Music Producers; How to Prevent Data Misuse in the Era of Machine Learning and Big Data for Creators

Before, musicians had to bring large instruments to perform and compose; Artists had to use many pencils and paintings to create drawings. However, thanks to the booming technology, the creators do not need to use such amounts of tools but a computer. Furthermore, the computer allows creators to get more assistance from AI and reduce repeated steps. To provide better service to creators, more portable and convenient devices were developed. My technical project is one of these inventions, which is called MIDI Controller, which allow musicians to play and compose music easily. The project will deeply explain how we design the mechanical, electrical and software part. It will then illustrate what flaws it contain and future improvements. However, considering the mass development of technology, it not only brings benefits but also troubles to creators. Therefore, my STS research focuses on how to prevent data misuse on creators (musicians, artists, writers and etc.). After figuring out the motivations of companies and how creators get trouble from machine learning, the research paper will then illustrate what could be the potential solutions to the issue and how to make improving technology and creators a win-win state. This STS paper will potentially benefit the users of our technical project.
In my capstone team, there are three members who learns to play instruments, and among them, our team leader is also a music composer. He sometimes uses the traditional MIDI Controller to compose. However, when I saw the MIDI Controller, I knew nothing about it as the device only has several white buttons with no instructions. I told this to my team member and we found out it could be a good design if the design can allow even beginners to use. Unlike traditional MIDI Controller, our design aims to provide as much instructions as possible to guide users. As a result, the screen with UI is applied to show options and button instructions. The buttons are transparent so that users will know what function the button is used for. The device still needs to connect to computers but it is designed light and small to make it portable. In the demo session, the design was praised a lot by visitors.

In my STS project, I investigate how machine learning influence creators. Trying to paint a nice art has always been one of my dreams, while I did not have time to pay efforts on my art. Therefore, it seemed like this dream became impossible. Luckily, the improvement of technology now let everybody paint what they want by simply typing several prompt words. I also tried it but I realized the style of the painting was familiar to some of the artists. I did some research and I found out that many artists are suffering from machine learning since machine learning would take their arts as training data to learn styles without permissions or compensations. By reading research published by other authors, it seemed like there was an irreconcilable contradiction. Nevertheless, I found out that the companies devote to the users and users did not treat authors’ works as that important by not knowing how companies trained such a good model. Therefore, if public can cultivate a sense of protecting copyrights, the issue might be solved in a good way.
From STS perspective, we respect the works of creators and are committed to building a fair and copyright-respecting creative environment. By viewing the technical design of our MIDI Controller and the cultural impact of AI on creative practices, I begin to realize how important it is to integrate ethical elements in engineering work. Our technical project benefits musicians technically, but more importantly, it also inspires us to think ethically about creators’ rights in the digital age. I recognize that engineering solutions should not only solve problems, but also consider and promote fairness, transparency, and respect, in order to build a better ethical creative environment.

School of Engineering and Applied Science

Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering

Technical Advisor: Adam Barnes

STS Advisor: William Davis

Technical Team Members: Wanghaotian Zhang, Jinhong Zhao, Tong Zhou, Haizhou Yu, Jennifer Shern