ABBA’s Bjorn Ulvaeus on AI and Music

Rick Beato‘s recent interview of ABBA’s Bjorn Ulvaeus included a lengthy discussion of AI and how it is impacting music. Ulvaeus talks about the challenges of even identifying when it is being used. Hearing someone’s voice being sampled, like the experiments with Drake and John Lennon, is one thing. But identifying what the model has been trained on when you are talking about style or melody is another thing. “But the prompt, the instruction to the AI model, that’s were you could go, and if there is something in the prompt like ‘Abba-like, but with a hint of Queen, sung by Frank Sinatra.’ Then you could at least identify who it has been trained on. But how do you then distribute whatever payment comes out of that? This is a huge problem for the music industry.” Beato thinks music platforms will someday include AI channels based on musicians and bands.