Björn Ulvaeus used a United Nations AI for Good summit speech to argue that artificial intelligence should benefit creators only when they have consented and share in the value created from their work. He said the central issue is not whether AI should exist, but whether it is built and used in a way that respects authors’ rights. The argument matters because it frames the debate around copyright, payment and fairness as governments and technology companies shape new AI rules.

Ulvaeus contrasted ABBA Voyage, which uses digital avatars with the band’s consent and payment, with generative AI systems trained on music without agreed permission or compensation. He said music models have been trained on “a century of human songs”, including his own work, and proposed that creators should be paid for the material used to train AI rather than only for identifiable outputs. His suggested model would channel a share of AI subscription revenue back to creators collectively, similar to streaming, and he said the main barrier is political will rather than technical infrastructure.