ABBA's Bjorn Ulvaeus Says AI Is ‘Great' For Ideation, But It's ‘Bad At Lyrics'

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ABBA's Bjorn Ulvaeus said, 'A misconception is that AI can write a whole song. It's lousy at that — very bad. And thank God!'
At a time when the world is concerned about the dominance of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Swedish pop band ABBA's musician Bjorn Ulvaeus isn't too bothered by it. During a panel discussion at SXSW London titled 'The Future of Entertainment", the 80-year-old singer-songwriter shared that he used AI, which helped him in partially composing a musical.
Bjorn said, 'It is such a great tool," as quoted by the Hollywood Reporter. The musician shared that it is unthinkable that a machine or software can help people by giving them ideas about a topic, which can 'go in various different directions." While Bjorn did not share many details about the music on which he took help from AI, he did reveal that the song is three-quarters done, and AI acted as 'another songwriter in the room," noting that it did not write the whole song.
'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," the ABBA member said. He further explained his statement, highlighting that if someone is stuck after writing a lyric or anything else and doesn't know which direction to go about, then AI comes in handy in such cases.
He mentioned, '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."
Further in the conversation, the artist even cracked a joke, saying that AI won't be able to write an ABBA song. 'It says, 'No, we can't do that,'" Bjorn said before playfully adding that AI is 'quicker and does exactly what you tell it," unlike his ABBA co-write,r Benny Andersson.
While Bjorn Ulvaeus is not concerned about AI and has used it in his music, not everyone in the industry is of the same opinion as his. Back in April 2024, 200 artists, including Billie Eilish, Camila Cabello, Imagine Dragons, Jonas Brothers, and Zayn Malik, were among the artists who signed an open letter criticising 'AI-music generation technology".
A part of their petition read, 'We, the undersigned members of the artist and songwriting communities, call on AI developers, technology companies, platforms and digital music services to cease the use of artificial intelligence to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists."
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