With an assist from “art”-ificial intelligence, Paul McCartney was able to complete one final collaboration with his Beatles songwriting partner John Lennon forty years after the latter’s murder, the New York Times reports.
McCartney says he used a demo of a song Lennon did in the late 1970s to use as a way to “collaborate” on the unfinished song, believed to be called “Now and Then.” After Lennon’s death, the three surviving Beatles–George Harrison, Ringo Starr and McCartney–completed two other songs on that demo reel, but “Now and Then” remained unfinished. The songs, “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love,” weren’t released until the mid-1990’s.
Saying he used AI like a mixing board as he would in a studio, McCartney said he was able to finish the threads Lennon had laid down on tape decades before. It’s unclear if Sir Paul was using the technology to complete lyrics, tunes or as a way of riffing.