Legendary musician Paul McCartney has revealed that he used artificial intelligence (AI) to help create what he calls "the final Beatles record", BBC reported. The revelation was made in a BBC radio interview, wherein he said that AI was used to extricate the late John Lennon's vocals from a previously recorded track.
Though he did not provide the song's title, it is speculated that the unfinished John Lennon song in question is Now and Then. He told the BBC the idea to use AI to finish the song came from the 2021 Beatles documentary Get Back, which was directed by Peter Jackson.
''When we came to make what will be the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John [Lennon] had that we worked on. And we've just finished it up, it'll be released this year. We were able to take John's voice and get it pure through this AI so that we could mix the record as you would normally do,'' Mr. McCartney said in the interview.
When asked about how he feels about AI technology, Mr. McCartney replied, ''Well, it's a very interesting thing, you know. It's something we're all sort of tackling at the moment and trying to deal with what it means. I don't hear that much because I'm not on the Internet that much, but people will say to me, there's a track where John's singing one of my songs. And it isn't, it's just AI, you know. So all of that is kind of scary, but exciting because it's the future.''
'Now and Then' was previously considered a possible reunion song for the Beatles in 1995, however, the idea was quickly abandoned. Mr. McCartney later revealed the song was shelved because George Harrison had called it ''f**king rubbish'' and refused to work on it, Guardian reported.
The use of AI in music is the subject of debate in the industry, with some denouncing copyright abuses and others praising its prowess. There has been controversy over the creation of fake songs using the AI voices of artists, such as Drake, Kanye West, and Rihanna.
Recently, Canadian singer Grimes said that she will allow her voice to be used on any song produced by Artificial Intelligence (AI). She also invited musicians to clone her voice to create new songs.
