It's a seductive distraction from the advances in AI that are most likely to improve or even save your life On April 28, 2022, at a highly anticipated concert in Spokane, Washington, the musician Paul McCartney astonished his audience with a groundbreaking application of AI: He began to perform with a lifelike depiction of his long-deceased musical partner, John Lennon. Using recent advances in audio and video processing, engineers had taken the pair's final performance (London, 1969), separated Lennon's voice and image from the original mix and restored them with lifelike clarity. For years, researchers like me had taught machines to "see" and "hear" in order to make such a moment possible. As McCartney and Lennon appeared to reunite across time and space, the arena fell silent; many in the crowd began to cry. As an AI scientist and lifelong Beatles fan, I felt profound gratitude that we could experience this truly life-changing moment. Later that year, the world was captivated by another major breakthrough: AI conversation.

Paul McCartney enlisted a little help from artificial intelligence to complete the'last Beatles song' two years ago. The track, 'Now and Then', became the first Beatles music to reach number 1 in the UK for 64 years. Now, in an apparent effort to repeat its success, McCartney has once again used AI – on two more songs. The sophisticated tool called'MAL' is the creation of WingNut Films, the production company headed by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. MAL has managed to extricate John Lennon's voice from two poor-quality demos he made shortly before his death.

After President Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on nearly all Canadian imported goods (and Canada announced its own 25 percent tariff on American imported goods), Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario -- and a former supporter of President Trump -- announced the Canadian territory would be "ripping up" a 100 million contract with Elon Musk's Starlink. The contract was signed in November last year. Musk, boss of Starlink and the richest man in the world, is a close confidant of Trump and has control over the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE (urgh), tasked with cost-cutting and deregulation in government. Ford believed this was enough to link Musk (and his businesses) to Trump's tariffs. He said Ontario "won't do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy" and that Musk wants to "take food off the table" of hard-working Canadians.

With the help of modern machine learning technology, The Beatles were able to release their song " Now and Then" in late 2023. The song contains vocals recorded from around 50 years ago and a guitar track from 1995, but technological limitations at the time prevented it from seeing the light of day without serious audio issues. Today, after being nominated in November 2024 for two Grammys, "Now and Then" won one for Best Rock Performance. When the demo was first recorded, John Lennon's singing and piano were on the same audio track, and separating them was impossible. Fortunately, AI can now do that without much bleed or loss.

While reading through the list of Grammy nominees earlier I came across quite a surprise. There, competing for record of the year alongside the likes of Beyoncé's Texas Hold'Em and Chappell Roan's Good Luck Babe, was Now and Then by The Beatles. So, here's the story of how The Beatles got nominated for two Grammys -- they also snagged a best rock performance nod -- 50 years after formally breaking up. It starts with a demo John Lennon recorded in the 1970s that was given to Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison for inclusion on the The Beatles Anthology, released in 1995. While other tracks like Free as a Bird and Real Love made it on, technology wasn't advanced enough to separate Lennon's vocals and piano without reducing the recording's quality. But, last year McCartney and Starr used modern machine learning technology to pull Lennon's vocals for a new track.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has already enabled the creation of the'last Beatles song', Now and Then, which raced to the top of the charts this week. Filmmaker Peter Jackson used an AI tool called'machine audio learning' (MAL) to isolate John Lennon's voice from an old 1970s home demo. The vocal performance – rendered'crystal clear' by the AI – was then complemented by new instrumentation from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with guitar recorded by George Harrison for the song in 1995. But MAL's work may not be finished, as it could be used to salvage the last filmed interview of John Lennon, recorded less than two months before his tragic murder. Long to the frustration of fans, much of Lennon's answers to questions in the historically priceless clip are drowned out by – somewhat bizarrely – the sound of the first Star Wars movie.

As the other members of the Beatles sing and play, Lennon, ever the cut-up, clowns around, bouncing from one leg to the other with a grin on his face. His hands move like flippers, turned out at an odd angle and making frantic circles in the air, as if he's wiping down an invisible window. And as his body moves from side to side, his head seems to lag slightly behind it. The larkish ebullience feels strained and off-kilter, like an audience that wants to clap along but can't find the beat. The music video for "Now and Then," which has been billed as "the last Beatles song," starts off as an affectionate nostalgia trip, intercutting present-day footage of the two surviving Beatles with archival footage of their late bandmates.

Following a lot of hype--and a quarter-century of work--"Now and Then," presumably the last song to feature all four original Beatles, is here. The track dropped Thursday and the music video, directed by Peter Jackson, hit YouTube on Friday. Sweet and haunting, it's full of piano and strings, and it wouldn't have been possible without the machine learning technology Jackson used on the docuseries Get Back. How the AI technology became the thing that saved the song is a bit of a journey. Years after John Lennon died in 1980, his wife, the musician and multimedia artist Yoko Ono, told his bandmate Paul McCartney that she had a demo tape Lennon had recorded at their apartment in the Dakota in New York City.

The Beatles are back, sort of. The fab four just released a new song, the group's first since 1995. "Now and Then" is being advertised as the final Beatles track, which makes sense given that two of the members have passed and the other two are well over 80 years old. The song was built using a demo track from John Lennon dating back to the 1970s and a guitar track from George Harrison from 1995. The surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, finished off the tune with the help of modern machine learning technology.

The remaining Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, have completed the band's final song, decades after their breakup and the deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison. The band announced the song, titled "Now and Then," will be available worldwide Thursday, Nov. 2, paired with a re-release of their very first single, "Love Me Do," which debuted in 1962. "Now and Then" features vocals from Lennon as well as guitar performed by Harrison, recorded six years before his 2001 death. According to a press release for the song, Lennon recorded a demo with vocals and piano in the late 1970s while living in the Dakota building in New York. The Beatles announced a new song, "Now and Then," featuring contributions from the departed members of the band, John Lennon and George Harrison.