Here comes the AI: The Beatles’ last song resurrected by artificial intelligence gets a Grammy nomination

The Beatles

Who knew that 50 years later their big split, The Beatles would be up for a Grammy? Thanks to the power of machine learning AI, “Now and Then” is now up for not one but two Grammy nominations. The song — recreated with the help of AI — is up for best rock performance and record of the year awards.

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr dipped into  machine learning to transform a rough, low-fidelity demo by John Lennon into a fully produced song. The Beatles first explored the possibility of developing Lennon’s “Now and Then” in the mid-1990s, when McCartney, George Harrison, and Starr reunited to create fresh tracks for the Anthology albums. However, the attempts failed. Decades later the song came to life thanks to machine learning which helped to separate the vocals from instruments.

In a documentary about the song, McCartney said, “To still be working on Beatles music in 2023... wow. We’re actually messing around with state-of-the-art technology, which is something the Beatles would’ve been very interested in. ‘Now and Then,’ it’s probably like the last Beatles song. And we’ve all played on it, so it is a genuine Beatle recording.”

The Grammys do have a strict policy when it comes to using AI for music. As per the awards committee, “A work that contains no human authorship is not eligible in any Categories.” However, if any work featuring elements of AI is eligible if “the human authorship component of the work submitted must be meaningful and more than de minimis; and if the work is submitted in a performance Category, there must be meaningful and more than de minimis human authorship in respect of the performance.” In other words, the human element should be way more than the use of AI. 'De minimis' is defined as lacking significance or importance, said the awards committee.