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Grammys ban AI-generated music from awards

The Grammys has updated its guidelines to make any works created solely using AI not eligible for awards.

The Recording Academy will not recognise work that “contains no human authorship” in any category.

However, the academy decided that songs containing elements of AI would be considered, as long as they also have “meaningful contributions” from a human.

Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. commented: “If there’s an AI voice singing the song or AI instrumentation, we’ll consider it. But in a songwriting-based category, it has to have been mostly written by a human. The same goes for performance categories—only a human performer can be considered for a Grammy.

“At this point, we are going to allow AI music and content to be submitted, but the Grammys will only be allowed to go to human creators who have contributed creatively in the appropriate categories.”

What’s more, to win the prestigious Album of the Year prize, the creator, be it a featured artist, credited artist, songwriter, producer, and so on, must have contributed a minimum of 20 per cent of the work across the LP.

The update to the rules comes amid a rise in AI-generated music, with even Sir Paul McCartney set to reunite with the late John Lennon on the final Beatles song, thanks to the technology.

The surviving member of the legendary rock’n’roll group revealed they used artificial intelligence (AI) on an old demo to extract Lennon’s vocals.

McCartney, 81, told BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ show: “We just finished it up and it’ll be released this year.”

The music legend didn’t name the song, but according to reports, it’s said to be ‘Now and Then’.

The same method was used in Peter Jackson’s 2021 three-part Beatles documentary ‘Get Back’.

McCartney admits that AI is “kind of scary”.

However, he added: “It’s the future. We’ll just have to see where that leads.”

The Beatles’ final song will be shared with the world later this year, with a firm release date yet to be announced.