The document discusses whether music recommendation is more of an art than a science. It outlines how early approaches to music information retrieval (MIR) were more scientific but limitations have been reached. Holistic metrics that measure user trust and satisfaction are suggested to better evaluate recommendations but are not fully objective or standardized. The field may be transitioning from a science to more of a practical challenge dominated by psychological and subjective factors, entering an "Age of the Dark Art". A way forward could involve focusing on unsolved MIR problems or adjourning the workshop discussions.

1. The Dark Art Is Music Recommendation Science a Science? Michael Papish 2010.09.26 WOMRAD | Barcelona

3. Our perspective on MIR Page A little like outsiders peering in… hippie drum circle

4. Your perspective on us Page … or, less charitably Requires change in USA Constitution before can be elected President

8. My immature attempt at a Philosophy of Recommendation Science

10. Page What is the puzzle of recommendations? Puzzle: Understand the listener’s preferences and help her find and discover music she likes Foundational Problem: How do we measure success? Without an objective metric how do we conduct scientific research?

11. Page This is not a new observation ISMIR 2001 Resolution: There is a current need for metrics to evaluate the performance and accuracy of the various approaches and algorithms being developed within the Music Information Retrieval research community. Herlocker et al. Evaluating collaborative filtering recommender systems. [2004]: Each algorithmic approach has adherents who claim it to be superior for some purpose. Clearly identifying the best algorithm for a given purpose has proven challenging, in part because researchers disagree on which attributes should be measured, and on which metrics should be used for each attribute. Researchers who survey the literature will find over a dozen quantitative metrics and additional qualitative evaluation techniques.

15. Page The (abbreviated) History of MIR The dawn of time (1960) The start of infinite music (2001) Dotcoms are cool again (2006) The Future (according to Gartner/Jupiter always happening in present +3 years) “ Hmm, it’s hard to file LPs in the card catalog” Learned how to stop making bad recs The Age of Good Recs Crisis? – The Dark Arts Age The Wall of Really Good Recs (no David Gilmour) The golden age of Mark Zuckerberg house parties (2005)

16. Worries that Recommendation Science is no longer a Science

20. A Way Forward

22. The biggest problem in music science today Page Can we get this guy to stop ruining every show we go to?

23. Page Or, Option #2 Or, seeing as this presentation is the very first session at the very first workshop on the very first day of RecSys2010, we could…

24. Page Or, Option #2 … adjourn to here for the rest of the week

25. Discussion / Tomato Throwing Time

26. Tik tok.