Czech ice dancers use AI-generated music at the Olympics

Czech ice dancers Kateřina Mrázková and Daniel Mrázek made their Olympic debut on Monday, performing their rhythm dance—a specific event in ice dance competition—to a program that featured AI-generated music. The sibling duo’s choice of music does not violate any official rules of the International Skating Union, the governing body that oversees competitive ice skating. However, the performance has drawn significant attention to the role of artificial intelligence in creative and athletic exhibitions.

According to the International Skating Union, the Czech duo’s music selection for this season’s rhythm dance consists of “One Two by AI (of 90s style Bon Jovi)” and “Thunderstruck by AC/DC.” During the broadcast of their Olympic debut, an NBC commentator noted, “This is AI generated, this first part,” referring to the opening portion of the routine. The AI-generated track mimics the style of 1990s rock artists like Bon Jovi. This contrasted with other competitors under the season’s theme; for instance, the British ice dancing duo Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson, as well as United States ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates, performed to traditional 1990s music. Earlier in the season, the Czech duo faced scrutiny for using an AI-generated song with lyrics that closely mirrored the 1990s hit “You Get What You Give” by the American band New Radicals, whose original music video was filmed in a Staten Island mall. In November, journalist Shana Bartels noted that the duo had changed the song before the Olympics, swapping those lyrics for new AI-generated lines that resemble Bon Jovi’s “Raise Your Hands.”

The integration of AI-generated music into the Olympics highlights the broader, controversial adoption of Large Language Models (LLMs)—AI systems trained on vast datasets—within creative industries. These LLMs are trained on large libraries of music, often through legally dubious means, to generate statistical approximations of existing styles. While the technology remains highly controversial among human creators, it is finding commercial traction. For example, Telisha Jones, a 31-year-old musician in Mississippi, used the AI music generation tool Suno to set her poetry to music, subsequently securing a $3 million record deal.

Why it matters

The Czech siblings’ use of AI-generated music at the Olympics serves as a symbol of the broader, controversial integration of LLMs into creative industries.