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Yesterday the Grammy Awards took place in the United States and The Beatles became the first artists to win an award with a song produced with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). The song Now and Then, which was released last year, won the Grammy Award in the best rock performance category.
It was their first new song since 1995 and it used a demo recording of the late John Lennon from 1977. The low-quality cassette audio meant that Lennon's singing voice could not be used to produce a complete song.
But with the help of AI, Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr - the two surviving Beatles members - managed to complete the song Now and Then which had been delayed since 1995. The idea to complete Now and Then was restarted after the documentary Get Back was produced in 2023. Its director Peter Jackson used AI to better separate the audio. The same AI was used on the Lennon demo cassette recording with the late voice successfully separated from the background audio.
The Grammys have previously said that audio produced with the help of AI is still eligible for nominations if it still has human artist involvement. Songs produced with the help of AI are still ineligible, with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) having ruled that all generative AI works are not patentable and are free for anyone to use.