Last november, a pair of Olympic-bound figure skaters performed in a competition to a song with lyrics that sounded oddly familiar. “Every night we smash a Mercedes-Benz,” the singer began. It was one of several recognizable lines from the 1998 pop hit “You Get What You Give,” by the New Radicals. But the ice dancers’ song was otherwise different. The New Radicals’ message to angsty teenagers had been converted to Bon Jovi–style arena rock. If you knew “You Get What You Give,” this was a pretty strange variation on it.

The dancers had used music generated by AI. Whatever model was involved had likely been trained on “You Get What You Give” and had copied some of the song’s content, as AI systems are prone to do. Such systems don’t always reproduce elements of existing songs in this way, but you’ll hear it now and then, and sometimes even more blatantly. Suno, one of the most popular AI music generators, for example, has pumped out tracks that strongly resemble Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You,” Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,” Bill Haley & His Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock,” B. B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone,” and others. Listen to Michael Jackson’s song alongside a Suno-generated track titled “Thriller”:

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