The Music AI Can’t Hear
Microtonal Music and the Case for Culturally Inclusive AI
Hundreds of millions of people make and listen to music rooted in traditions that today's AI tools cannot accurately perceive, generate, or serve. This is not a niche but rather a structural one, baked into the datasets powering every major generative music model and inherited by every product built on top of them.
Drawing on academic research, practitioner experience in maqam-based composition and performance, and the work of Motif in building culturally grounded AI infrastructure, this session covers why the bias in AI music training data is structural, what microtonal systems like maqam actually require from AI, and why the commercial and cultural cases for inclusive AI are aligned rather than in tension, ultimately forming a window into what music infrastructure that serves the full breadth of human expression and musical cultures could look like.
Designed for musicians, researchers, and builders, the session moves from problem to nuanced possibility. Attendees will leave with specific language, frameworks, and arguments they can bring back to their own work, and explore further.
Jad Al Masri
Jad Al‑Masri is a multifaceted creative force — an award‑winning violinist and composer, founder and CEO, creative director, lawyer, writer, and AI researcher — uniquely bridging the worlds of music, media, law, culture, and artificial intelligence. He is the founder of Motif, a culturally inclusive music AI company building infrastructure for non‑Western musical traditions, beginning with Arabic Maqam. His work has been featured by and presented across leading global music and technology communities, including MIT, Berklee College of Music, Water & Music, Music Ally, and New York Music Month.
As an artist, Jad has composed, creatively directed, and performed original world music repertoire with 30‑piece orchestras in Sydney through a series of independently produced, sold‑out multicultural concerts, most recently presenting new compositions to a full‑house audience in January 2026. Through his writing, research, and public speaking, he explores the future of music, creativity, consciousness, law, and AI, with a focus on building technologies that better represent the world’s musical cultures. Jad holds degrees in Law and Media Arts from the University of Technology Sydney, with a specialty in music, media, and intellectual property law, and is a member of the WIPO AI Infrastructure Technical Exchange Network.