Artificial intelligence helped to create the last song of The Beatles

Paul McCartney has created a «new» and the last song by The Beatles. With the help of artificial intelligence, the musician managed to recreate John Lennon’s voice from an old demo recording and finish the song started several decades ago.

Although McCartney did not name the song, the BBC suggests that it could be «Now and Then» from 1978. The demo was one of three songs on cassettes labeled For Paul that Lennon recorded shortly before his death and which were later given to McCartney by Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono.

In addition to «Now and Then,» the cassettes also contained «Free as a Bird» and «Real Love.» The Beatles finished and released them in 1994 and 1996, respectively, but the quality of «Now and Then» was worse. In 2009, a version of the demo without background noise was released on a counterfeit CD, but fans speculated that it was a completely different recording stolen from Lennon’s apartment after his death.

The idea to use artificial intelligence to complete the real «Now and Then» was prompted by Peter Jackson’s documentary «Come Back» dedicated to the band’s work, released in 2021. Dialogue editor Emile de la Rey used AI to recognize The Beatles' voices and separate them from background noise.

Paul McCartney noted that some artificial intelligence programs cause him concern. «It's a little scary, but it’s exciting because it’s the future… We just have to see where it goes,» he told the BBC.

In addition to helping to create the song, artificial intelligence can also design the cover for «Now and Then». Earlier, DALL-E 2 artificial intelligence complemented the cover of The Beatles' famous music album Abbey Road, released in April 1970. The photo shows musicians crossing Abbey Road. Under the blogger’s guidance, the neural network drew an image outside the photo frame, showing the road along the edges of the zebra. DALL-E 2 placed a large number of people on the crosswalk, added cell phones in their hands and futuristic skyscrapers. According to users, it looked like The Beatles were walking from the past to the future.