ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus working on an AI-assisted musical
"A misconception is that AI can write a whole song. It’s lousy at that — very bad... But it can give you ideas," Ulvaeus said at SXSW London panel
By Daniel Kreps
Having already found success with holograms, ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus has revealed that he’s writing a musical with help from another cutting-edge (and controversial) technology, AI.
“It is such a great tool,” Ulvaeus said at The Future of Entertainment panel Wednesday at SXSW London. “It’s unimaginable that you can bounce back and forth with a machine, or a software, which can give you ideas to go in various different directions.”
While Ulvaeus didn’t go too in detail about the musical, he said that his work on the project was three-quarters finished, and clarified that he was employing AI as “another songwriter in the room” as opposed to letting the tech just formulate entire songs.
“A misconception is that AI can write a whole song. It’s lousy at that — very bad. And thank God! It’s very bad at lyrics as well. But it can give you ideas,” Ulvaeus said (via The Hollywood Reporter).
“You have written a lyric about something, and you’re stuck maybe, and you want this song to be in a certain style. So you can prompt the lyric and the style you want, asking, ‘Where would you go from here?’ And it usually comes up with garbage, but sometimes there is something in it that gives you another idea. That’s how it works.”
Ulvaeus embrace of AI comes at a time when many of his musical peers are voicing their concern about the technology: In May, over 400 artists — including Elton John, Dua Lipa, Kate Bush, and Paul McCartney — signed a letter calling on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to update U.K. copyright laws in the face of AI.
This past December, artists, publishers, media companies and more banded together to form the Creative Rights in AI Coalition, which aims to keep the current copyright protections in place despite the U.K.’s continued courtship of AI technology.
While ABBA released their album Voyage in 2021, the Swedish quartet’s first LP in 40 years, Ulvaeus quipped that AI is incapable of writing an ABBA song — “It says, ‘No, we can’t do that’” — but joked that, opposed to his longtime ABBA co-writer Benny Andersson, AI “is quicker and does exactly what you tell it.”