Lorde slams new AI-generated Spotify feature: “We don’t want this”
Lorde has hit out at the new ‘About the Song’ feature on Spotify, which appears to use AI to generate a summary of the song currently playing on the platform.
On her Instagram Stories, the singer-songwriter tagged the company and began, “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say we don’t want this.”
In the background of the post, she had screenshotted an AI summary of her track ‘Current Affairs’ from her latest album, Virgin.
Incorrectly, the platform stated that she performed the song on her 2025 Ultrasound World Tour when removing her clothes and dancing beneath a stream of water; the song that played during this sequence was actually ‘GRWM’.
“Not only is this inaccurate (not the song I did that in) but reducing a song to an AI-generated meaning right at the source feels like it limits free interpretation IMO,” Lorde’s statement went on.
She concluded succinctly, “At least make it possible for artists to opt out please.”
The new feature was launched in February. At the time, Spotify said the feature was intended to “explore the meaning behind the music you’re hearing [with summaries from] third party sources.”
Spotify has since responded to Lorde’s public callout. As per Pitchfork, the platform retaliated, “We built ‘About the Song’ because fans want to dig into the stories behind the music. It’s still in beta.”
The statement went on, “The info comes from articles across the internet, and when something’s off, we move fast to fix it, like we did here. Getting it right matters to us.”
Earlier this year, the Swedish company vowed to usher in a new ‘Verified by Spotify’ badge, which would only apply to genuine artists who have verified their identity, in a bid to clamp down on AI music.
However, their stance on AI music has been much more lenient than many other streaming providers, including the likes of Bandcamp, which does not allow AI-generated music on its platform.
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