ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus Talks AI Training at United Nations Summit: Artists ‘Deserve a Place at the Table’
Categoria: Musica
Ulvaeus, the opening keynote speaker at the UN's AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, started his speech with a simple question: "Good for whom?"
Por Billboard | 13/07/2026
ABBA member and CISAC president Björn Ulvaeus took the stage at the United Nations’ AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva on Monday (July 13) to ask a simple question: “Good for whom?” Kicking off the summit as its opening keynote speaker, Ulvaeus stressed to the crowd to remember the point of view of artists and creatives in the pursuit of AI development: “A technology is good when the human beings whose work made it possible are not erased by it, when they consent to it, when they share in what it creates,” he said. Ulvaeus continued that he hopes “one extra chair will always be reserved at that table for the creators whose work made these systems possible.” Related How AI Rights Are Changing Record Contracts — and Why Music Attorneys Are Pushing Back DJ Quik Says His Son 'Made a Mistake' Following Murder Conviction, Pleads With Fans to Stop Asking About It Naoshi Fujikura of Universal Music Japan on Japan's Unique Superfan Culture & Global Ambitions: Billboard Global Power Players Interview He added, “These tools are extraordinary, but they could not have been built without us.” Consent was the focal point of Ulvaeus’ keynote. As he noted in his speech, the ABBA co-founder has never been shy about embracing emerging technology. Just a few years ago, the band used “motion capture and motion learning” to create the groundbreaking virtual ABBA Voyage show in London, which uses technology to de-age and simulate the performances of the four Swedish singers night after night. “Some people sometimes ask me, ‘How can you lecture the world about AI and human creativity, and then sell tickets to watch a machine perform as you?'” Ulvaeus explained. “The answer is one word: consent. We chose it. We participated in it. We are paid for it. The technology serves the artist because the artists were at the table from the very beginning, and the audiences love it. So, I guess that’s AI for good.” He continued, “I’m not going to stand here and tell you that machine-made music is cold or soulless, and that audiences will always hear the difference. I know that isn’t true. I am genuinely in awe of the tools that have been built, but awe is not the same as acceptance.” Ulvaeus also stressed that because creatives’ work “lives inside these models” and is the “foundation on which these tools were built,” this should make creatives “partners, not protesters, not obstacles, not a problem to be managed by lawyers. Partners. And partners deserve a place at the table. Partners deserve a share of the harvest.” He noted that he does not believe the answer “lies in tracing our work in the outputs…I think it misunderstands how these models work,” explaining that they “don’t sample recordings” but “learn relationships across billions of exampl