I agree wholeheartedly. There is something in a performance that records will never be able to match, for the existence of imperfections actually makes a work of art "better" in a way. The human component, the interactions between the actors and the audience, makes each performance unique, while a machine will do it the same each time. However, I was trying to approach the problem in an alternative way, since this argument about the "human" nature of art is so cliche (in my opinion, at least). Take theater and film for example. A film can create a "perfect" performance (well, relatively), yet in its presentation, it lacks the whole organic nature of the theater. That isn't to say that film isn't lacking of any advantages--it can incorporate elements that cannot be done due to the physical limitations of a live performance--it's just different. A camera (which, by the way, is a machine) can make a perfect replica of an image, so is painting now dead? Far from it. In fact, the camera was the impetus for the impressionist and surrealist movements of art. (If you ever asked why we don't have any more DaVinci's around, it's because of the camera. Why spend so much time trying to make something look realistic when you can just click a button? But that still doesn't make Leonardo's work any less valuable, or kill realism for that matter) We still value the human talent that goes into making a picture. At the same time, we don't shun the "machine generated" art of photographs. In fact, we recognize the talent of the artist behind the lens, both still and moving pictures. In the same way, we should value the talent of the programmer behind the code. When a machine is able to do something well, I don't understand why there is always such a backlash. Maybe people think that the machine is somehow cheating when it does something, but it was the work of humans that allowed the machine to achieve that feat, and that work should be celebrated. People usually try to say that a machine/computer will never be able to do x as well as a human, whether it be play chess or play an instrument. Well, why not? One day it's going to be an eventuality. Don't try to think of it as a failure of a human against a machine, but as the success of a human through a machine.