The millions of songs processed into AI-generated music

Llast November, A pair of Olympic figure skaters competed to a song whose lyrics sounded strangely familiar. “Every night we smash a Mercedes-Benz,” the singer began. It was one of several well-known lines from the New Radicals’ 1998 pop hit “You Get What You Give.” But otherwise, the ice dancers’ song was different. The New Radicals’ message to angsty teenagers was transformed into Bon Jovi-style arena rock. If you knew “You Get What You Give,” that would be a pretty weird variation on it.

The dancers had used AI generated music. Whatever model was involved, it had likely been trained on “You Get What You Give” and copied some of the song’s content, as AI systems often do. Such systems don’t always reproduce elements of existing songs in this way, but you can hear it every now and then and sometimes even more clearly. For example, Suno, one of the most popular AI music generators, has released tracks that are heavily…