Synthetic Media refers to the artificial production, manipulation, and modification of data and media by automated means, especially through artificial intelligence algorithms.
The idea of synthetic media is also closely linked with automation, especially with a lot of synthetic media being automatically generated by artificial intelligence and machine learning systems. The idea of automatically generated art and entertainment can be traced back to the ideas of the automata of ancient Greek civilization; but it also includes ideas and devices found throughout history and throughout Europe, China, and India. This includes a device such as Johann Philipp Kirnberger's “Musikalisches Würfelspiel” or a musical dice game. None of these were truly capable of generating original content and were dependent on their designs. It is not until the rise of artificial intelligence that the understanding of synthetic media as partially self-developing, if not fully self-developing, emerges.