Muhammad IbadurrohmanGeneva, Switzerland – Björn Ulvaeus, a celebrated member of the iconic Swedish group ABBA and the influential President of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), delivered a compelling keynote address at the United Nations’ AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva on Monday, July 13. His address centered on a foundational question for the burgeoning age of artificial intelligence: "Good for whom?" Ulvaeus emphatically urged the international community, developers, and policymakers to prioritize the perspectives and rights of artists and creators in the rapid evolution of AI technologies, advocating for a system rooted in consent, fair participation, and equitable sharing of value generated from creative works.
The UN AI for Good Global Summit: A Critical Juncture
The UN AI for Good Global Summit serves as a pivotal platform, convening leaders from government, industry, academia, and civil society to discuss how AI can be harnessed to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. In an era marked by transformative technological advancements, the summit’s focus on ethical and beneficial AI development underscores the urgency of establishing global norms and safeguards. Ulvaeus’s presence as the opening keynote speaker underscored the critical intersection of technology, creativity, and human rights, positioning the creative sector at the forefront of the AI governance debate. His appeal for an "extra chair" at the decision-making table for creators highlights the summit’s potential to shape policies that will impact creative industries for generations. The recently launched UN AI for Good Commission further amplifies the need for integrated perspectives, where artistic contributions are not merely considered but are foundational to ethical AI deployment.
A Legacy of Rights: From Paris to Geneva, and Now to AI
Drawing a historical parallel, Ulvaeus traced the evolution of creators’ rights from their genesis in 18th-century France to their global enshrinement in Geneva. He noted that Paris, in 1791, was the first city to legally recognize that an author’s work belongs to the author. This foundational principle was then universalized through the Berne Convention, administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), headquartered just kilometers from the summit stage. The Berne Convention established that a song written in Stockholm is protected in Seoul, Sao Paulo, and New York, creating a global framework for copyright protection. Ulvaeus’s current plea is for the UN to extend this historical commitment to universality and fairness into the age of AI. As President of CISAC, which represents over 4 million creators across 116 countries, Ulvaeus brings the collective voice of global artists, composers, and authors to this vital discussion, emphasizing the need for a new "contract" for the digital age. This historical context underscores the precedent for international cooperation in safeguarding creative rights, a model Ulvaeus believes is crucial for navigating the complexities of AI.
Defining "AI for Good": The ABBA Voyage Blueprint
Ulvaeus presented a clear, actionable test for what constitutes "AI for good": "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 offered ABBA Voyage, the band’s groundbreaking virtual concert experience in London, as a prime example of AI successfully deployed with these principles intact.
Launched in May 2022, ABBA Voyage employs advanced motion capture and machine learning technologies to create realistic digital avatars, affectionately known as "ABBAtars," that perform nightly to sold-out audiences. These avatars depict the band members as they appeared in 1979, utilizing sophisticated de-aging and simulation techniques that required thousands of hours of performance capture from the real ABBA members. Ulvaeus acknowledged the paradox some might perceive: an advocate for human creativity selling tickets to a machine performance. However, he clarified the distinction with a single, powerful word: "consent."
"We chose it. We participated in it. We are paid for it," Ulvaeus explained. "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. It isn’t a slogan; it is a contract." This model, where artists actively engage in the technological process, provide explicit consent for the use of their likeness and work, and receive fair compensation, stands as a benchmark for ethical AI integration in creative fields. The commercial success of ABBA Voyage, which has garnered widespread critical acclaim and generated significant revenue, further demonstrates that technological innovation and artist rights can coexist harmoniously, creating new avenues for artistic expression and economic opportunity. The show’s ongoing success, consistently selling out its purpose-built arena in London, exemplifies how AI can enhance, rather than diminish, the artistic experience when ethical frameworks are in place.
The Indispensable Role of Human Creativity in AI Development
Ulvaeus challenged the notion that machine-made music is inherently "cold or soulless," confessing his genuine "awe of the tools that have been built." However, he quickly tempered this admiration with a crucial caveat: "awe is not the same as acceptance." He underscored that these "extraordinary tools" could not have been built without the vast reservoir of human creativity – the melodies, harmonies, lyrics, performances, and unique expressions accumulated over centuries.
"Their work lives inside these models. It is the foundation on which these tools were built," Ulvaeus asserted, arguing that this makes creators "partners, not protesters, not obstacles, not a problem to be managed by lawyers." This partnership, he stressed, necessitates a seat at the table and a "share of the harvest." The implicit message is clear: AI, while powerful, is derivative. Its ability to generate novel content is predicated on learning from billions of human-created examples. Without this "raw material," the sophistication and emotional resonance of AI-generated content would diminish significantly over time, eventually leading to a creative well running dry. The data sets used to train generative AI models are colossal, often comprising millions of songs, images, texts, and videos, each originating from human ingenuity. This fundamental reliance on existing human work forms the crux of Ulvaeus’s argument for equitable compensation.
A Practical Framework for Compensation: The Spotify Analogy
Addressing the complex question of practical implementation, Ulvaeus proposed a pragmatic solution for creator compensation, moving away from the challenging prospect of tracing individual works in AI outputs. He argued that attempting to trace specific recordings within AI-generated content fundamentally misunderstands how large language models (LLMs) and generative AI operate. These models, he explained, do not simply "sample recordings" but rather "learn relationships across billions of examples" – patterns of melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, and language. The output is a "new synthesis built from everything the model has learned," rather than a direct copy of any single source. He illustrated this with his own creative process, using AI to generate demos from his guitar recordings, making it impossible to trace the AI’s output back to a specific source other than his original, consensual input.
"For me, tracing the output was always the wrong question. The right question is much simpler. It is about the training. Our works went in. We should be paid for what went in, not for every output that comes out the other end, but for the raw material that made the machine what it is," Ulvaeus stated.
He drew a compelling parallel to the early days of music streaming platforms like Spotify. When Spotify emerged, the industry didn’t attempt to measure the value of every individual listen before compensating creators. Instead, a collective licensing model was established: Spotify licensed vast catalogs of works, and a percentage of the platform’s revenue was then routed back collectively to rights holders. Ulvaeus posited that "AI can work the same way. A share of AI subscription revenues could flow back to the creators whose work trained these systems. Managed collectively, just as collective licensing has worked for more than a century. The infrastructure already exists." This collective management approach, already operational through organizations like CISAC, provides a robust, proven mechanism for distributing royalties efficiently and equitably, making it a viable blueprint for the AI era. CISAC alone collects and distributes over €10 billion annually on behalf of its members, demonstrating the scale and efficacy of such systems in managing complex global royalty flows.
Mounting Industry Concerns and Legal Battles
Ulvaeus’s impassioned plea resonates with a growing chorus of concerns from across the creative industries, which have been grappling with the rapid proliferation of AI and its implications for intellectual property and artist livelihoods. A series of recent developments highlights the urgency of establishing clear legal and ethical boundaries:
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Contractual Ambiguities: In April, Billboard reported on a significant legal vulnerability: top talent attorneys discovered that major labels and publishers could potentially leverage existing "blanket licensing and exploitation" clauses in U.S. record deals. These broad contractual terms, designed for various forms of content distribution and commercialization, could be interpreted by labels as sufficient permission to opt in artists’ works for AI model training without requiring specific, individual artist approval. Jason Boyarski, founding partner at Boyarski Fritz, confirmed this stance, stating, "Some of the labels have already taken the position that they technically don’t need special approvals to train." This interpretation creates a worrying loophole, potentially allowing artists’ entire catalogs to be ingested by AI models without their explicit, informed consent or direct compensation for this specific use, thereby shifting the burden of proof onto artists to opt out or challenge.
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Union Lawsuits: The American Federation of Musicians (AFM), a prominent union representing professional musicians, took decisive action in June by filing a lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) and Warner Music Group (WMG). The lawsuit alleges that AFM-represented musicians are not adequately sharing in the financial benefits derived from the major labels’ licensing settlements with AI music firms like Suno and Udio. The complaint states that defendants licensed sound recordings featuring AFM musicians’ work "without compensation or credit" to AI companies, while simultaneously refusing to provide information about which recordings were licensed. This legal challenge underscores the growing demand for transparency and equitable distribution of revenues generated from AI licensing deals, particularly as major labels secure substantial agreements with AI developers.
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Artist Coalition Protests: Later in June, a powerful coalition of 31 music rights organizations, including the Music Artists Coalition and Songwriters of North America, collectively voiced their profound concerns. They issued a public statement calling for an end to the "misuse of [our] rights in AI deals." The groups lambasted the perceived hypocrisy of labels and publishers who "rightly argue that AI companies need permission to train on their music catalogue, but will not grant artists and songwriters the same rights." This collective outcry highlights a significant power imbalance within the industry, where artists feel sidelined in crucial negotiations that determine the future value and use of their creative output, often without their direct involvement or a clear mechanism for remuneration.
While Ulvaeus’s keynote did not specifically target the practices of labels and publishers regarding licensed training data, his broader call for consensual AI training and fair compensation directly addresses the systemic issues highlighted by these ongoing disputes. His address adds considerable weight to the growing international movement advocating for artist-centric AI policies, emphasizing that the "political will to require it for everyone, not just those powerful enough to sue," is essential.
The Economic and Creative Imperative: Sustaining the Human Wellspring
The implications of failing to establish a fair compensation framework are profound, extending beyond individual artists to the very future of human creativity. Ulvaeus warned against the long-term consequences: "If human creators cannot earn a living, fewer people will devote years to mastering an instrument, finding their voice, or writing songs that matter." This sentiment was echoed by fellow artist John Legend, who also spoke at the summit as part of a session titled "The Sound of Intelligence: John Legend and the Leaders Shaping the AI Music Revolution." Legend stated, "AI has penetrated into our business and a lot of us are using it in healthy ways…I want us to treasure the role that great art plays in our lives. Treasuring also means requiring policy which protects the creators, so it is a viable career for artists."
The economic stakes are considerable. Industry estimates suggest the global AI music market is poised for exponential growth, projected to reach over $2.5 billion by 2032 from less than $400 million in 2023. If a significant portion of this value is generated from uncompensated training on existing human works, it could drastically devalue human creative labor. Ulvaeus’s observation that generative models can produce "more songs in a day than every member of CISAC will write in a lifetime" illustrates the sheer volume of AI-generated content, which, without proper licensing, could flood the market and depress earning opportunities for human artists, making a sustainable career in music increasingly untenable.
Moreover, the quality and originality of AI-generated content are intrinsically linked to the diversity and richness of its training data. If human creators are disincentivized or unable to pursue their craft due to lack of compensation, the "well" of original human creativity will indeed "run dry." This would, paradoxically, undermine the very foundation upon which AI models learn and evolve, leading to a stagnation of artistic innovation even for the machines themselves. Fairness, Ulvaeus argued, is not merely a moral imperative but an essential economic and creative strategy for sustainable growth.
A Fork in the Road: Shaping the Future of the Creative Economy
Ulvaeus concluded his address with a stark yet hopeful assessment of the current moment, describing it as "a fork in the road." The legal battles currently unfolding globally will be instrumental in determining whether collective licensing and consent become the bedrock of the AI industry or if "free extraction" prevails. He reflected on past technological upheavals – the cassette, CD, MP3, Napster, streaming – noting that each time, the industry ultimately found ways to embrace new technology while safeguarding human creators.
"Every time people had to make difficult decisions. And every time the decisions that lasted were reasonable ones," he observed. His optimism stems from a belief that human creativity is more than just "content" or "data"; it is "testimony, a life lived, a grief that became a lyric, a love that became a melody, a specific, unrepeatable experience of a human being in a particular time and place, transformed into something another human can feel." This intrinsic human value, he argued, is what trained these models, and those who provided this life’s work "deserve to share in what they have made possible."
His final appeal was to the companies building these powerful AI systems: "You have built remarkable things. You could not have built them without us. That makes us partners. We deserve a place at the table. We deserve a share of the harvest." Ulvaeus positioned human creativity not as an adversary to artificial intelligence but as its fundamental reason for existence. The future, he asserted, does not demand a choice between creators and technology, but rather a collective decision to ensure creators remain integral partners in the future they are helping to build. The opportunity now lies with the international community, gathered in Geneva, to renew the historical promise of creator rights for the AI age, ensuring that the transformative power of AI genuinely serves "good for all."
