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Paul McCartney’s position is not a simple reversal. He has accepted AI-assisted restoration to help finish the Beatles’ “Now And Then,” while criticizing a proposed UK copyright approach that could let AI developers train on creators’ work unless they opted out. The distinction is between using technology to recover an existing performance and using artists’ work to train systems without meaningful permission or payment.
Did Paul McCartney change his mind about AI?
Not in the way the headline claim suggests. McCartney has supported a specific use of machine-learning technology on an old Beatles recording, but that does not establish support for every use of AI in music. His later criticism focused on developers using copyrighted work for training under a proposed opt-out model.
The two positions address different questions: what technology does to a recording, and who can use creators’ work to build AI systems. Treating them as a contradiction obscures the distinction McCartney has drawn.
How AI was used on “Now And Then”
Released in 2023, “Now And Then” was completed by McCartney and Ringo Starr from a home demo recorded by John Lennon. Accounts of the process describe machine-learning technology separating Lennon’s vocal from the existing recording so it could be cleaned up and used in the finished track.
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That is AI-assisted source separation and restoration: the technology helped make an element of an existing performance usable. It was not reported as a system composing a new Beatles song or generating a new Lennon vocal performance. MusicRadar reproduced McCartney’s clarification that “nothing has been artificially or synthetically created.”
What McCartney objected to in the UK AI debate
In a BBC interview broadcast on January 26, 2025, McCartney criticized a proposed UK copyright approach under which AI developers could use copyrighted online material unless rights holders opted out. The concern was not simply that AI exists; it was that creators might lose control over whether their work is used to train commercial systems and whether they are compensated.
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The Associated Press, in a report published January 25, 2025, quoted McCartney warning about the effect on emerging songwriters: “You get young guys, girls, coming up, and they write a beautiful song, and they don’t own it, and they don’t have anything to do with it. And anyone who wants can just rip it off.”
He also argued that revenue should reach the people who created the work: “The truth is, the money’s going somewhere. When it gets on the streaming platforms, somebody is getting it, and it should be the person who created it. It shouldn’t be some tech giant somewhere.” These remarks express a concern about control, attribution and compensation; they do not amount to a claim that every AI application has the same effects.
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Restoring a recording versus training a generative system
The difference becomes clearer when the two uses are compared across the issues at stake.
| Question | “Now And Then” restoration | The training practice McCartney criticized |
|---|---|---|
| What is being used? | An existing Lennon demo and recorded vocal. | Creators’ copyrighted online work used as training material. |
| What does the technology do? | Separates an element of the source recording so it can be cleaned up and incorporated into a human-directed finished track. | Uses works to train AI developers’ systems; the cited reporting does not specify one particular model or output. |
| What is the permission issue? | The cited accounts describe the work on the Beatles recording, not a general rule for licensing restoration projects. | The proposed UK approach McCartney criticized would let developers use material unless rights holders opted out. |
| What is McCartney’s stated concern? | He said nothing had been artificially or synthetically created. | Creators could lose control and the chance to receive payment when their work is used. |
The comparison is about the particular examples in the reporting, not a claim that all restoration is harmless or that all generative AI works the same way. Permission, human creative control, attribution and compensation remain relevant questions in either case.
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Did McCartney say AI will “wipe out” the music industry?
“Wipe out the music industry” is secondary framing used by Futurism, not a verified verbatim quote in the cited primary excerpts. McCartney’s reported words are more specific: he warned that creators’ work could be taken without their involvement, that artists might not receive the money generated from it, and that this could weaken incentives for people to create.
The available reporting establishes his warning and the policy dispute, not a measured prediction that AI will eliminate the music industry. No authoritative quantitative figure in the cited material measures an AI-caused industry “wipeout.” His position is best described as support for a narrow restoration use alongside opposition to a copyright system he believes could disadvantage creators.
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