Ars Technica: Can a machine create a hit song?

A ‘hit’ means it compels the ‘least common denominator’ of pop culture. In this sense, the question is totally wrong. A machine »should be expected to be able to write a hit — because the least common denominator is ‘the low-hanging fruit’ of human attention, particularly today.

The better question(s) differ, and are far more complex:

A: Given that what a machine can compose does not qualify as a song, because songs are things living beings compose or emit… can a machine emulate this behavior in ways that resemble the depth and affect that emerge from the metalogue (that which an analogy is a lower-order representation of) of songwriting they emulate, simulate, or become computationally capable of emitting?

B: What would it mean if true? Did the machine actually accomplish this? (No, because humans programmed it; that is, created algorithms that resulted in the misdirected idea that ‘a machine succeeded at this’ (as with chess, etc.))

C: Humans create the capacities for machines to emulate their achievements — no mere machine accomplishes those achievements… EVER.

D: Tracking agency in language is a crucial feature of the capacity to preserve and advance human intelligence. The lie here is that the agency lies with the machine, which can NEVER be true.