Would You Like to Listen to My Music, My Friend? An Experiment on AI Musicians

Abstract

The rapid development of AI-related technologies and the upsurge of Metaverse are driving AI musicians into people’s lives. To clarify the link between anthropomorphism, users’ perceptions, and attitudes, and to explore the impact of listening type (listening to AI-generated music or not) on the relationship between anthropomorphism and users’ perceptions, we conducted a 2 × 2 experiment based on the two basic dimensions of social cognition. A total of 211 valid samples were collected and the partial least squares (PLS) method was used for data analysis to test the research model and hypotheses. The results show that more human-like AI musicians elicit higher users’ competence perceptions, which are crucial facilitators of users’ attitudes towards AI musicians; higher warmth perceptions help users form better attitudes towards AI musicians; listening to AI-generated music or not moderates the impact of anthropomorphism degree on users’ competence perceptions. This study promotes the understanding of the impact of AI musicians’ anthropomorphism and guides the design of AI musicians’ images to some extent.

Data availability statement

https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/btgtshgrbh/1.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Beijing Municipal Social Science Foundation [grant number 21XCB005].

Disclosure statement

No potential competing interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We are grateful to the two games for providing convenience for our experiment. We designed the low anthropomorphic images (cartoon style) using Tower of Fantasy and the high anthropomorphic images (realistic style) using NARAKA: Bladepoint.

2 These compositions are Black Hair Becomes Snow and Moonlight Covers Jingshan by NetEase Tianyin, Daddy’s Car by Flow Machines, The Awakening and Celtic Dance by AIVA.

3 TME Research Institute (2021). Year-End Report China 2021.

NetEase CloudMusic (2022). Trend Report of Chinese Music.

4 Xia Yubing and Chen Shuiruo are AI beings generated by Avatar Framework, and more information about this framework can be obtained from https://xiaoice.com.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daoyin Sun

Daoyin Sun is an associate professor of North China University of Technology. His research focuses on the business application of artificial intelligence and knowledge management. He has published papers in the journals such as Journal of Enterprise Information Management.

Haodong Wang

Haodong Wang is a Master candidate of North China University of Technology. His research field includes business application of artificial intelligence and online marketing.

Jie Xiong

Jie Xiong is an assistant professor of Beijing Wuzi University. Her research interests include the area of information system use, smart senior care, and artificial intelligence. Her works have been published in Technological Forecasting & Social Change, Information Systems, Information Technology & People, and Educational Gerontology.