Ringo Starr has denied rumors suggesting that he and Paul McCartney used AI to replicate John Lennon's voice in their recently released Beatles song, "Now and Then."
The Beatles' drummer addressed the speculation in an interview with AARP magazine while discussing his life during and after the band's era, including his collaboration with McCartney on an unfinished track.
"There were terrible rumors that it’s not John, it’s AI, whatever bulls*** people said," he said. "Paul and I would not have done that. It’s a beautiful song and a nice way to finally close that door."
Starr, McCartney, and the late George Harrison had previously released other demos featuring Lennon in the 1990s, but with "Now and Then" encountered difficulties separating Lennon's vocals from the instrumentals, The Hollywood Reporter noted.
However, while collaborating with director Peter Jackson on the Disney+ documentary "Get Back," a new technology using machine learning, a subset of AI, was developed. This innovative technology allowed the team to isolate and separate the various elements of the song into distinct tracks.
McCartney, Starr, and Giles Martin collaborated on producing new guitar and drum tracks and string arrangements. The AI meanwhile, extracted Lennon's vocals from a lower-quality cassette recording.
"When we came to make what will be the last Beatles’ record, it was a demo that John had [and] we were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI," McCartney told BBC 4 Radio in June. "Then we can mix the record, as you would normally do. So it gives you some sort of leeway."
McCartney also voiced reservations about the use of AI in music, particularly ahead of the release of the final Beatles song.
"I’m not on the internet that much [but] people will say to me, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s a track where John’s singing one of my songs,’ and it’s just AI, you know?" the singer-songwriter said. "It’s kind of scary but exciting, because it’s the future. We’ll just have to see where that leads."