Czech ice dancers Kateřina Mrázková and Daniel Mrázek made their Olympic debut on Monday, an achievement that represents a lifetime of dedication. However, the sibling duo used AI-generated music in their rhythm dance program. This does not break any official rules, but to many it serves as a disappointing symbol of technological overreach.
As Daniel spun his sister in a dramatic lift, an NBC commentator noted in passing that the opening music was AI-generated. That admission felt somehow more surprising than the athletes’ gravity-defying performance on the Olympic ice.
The ice dance competition consists of two parts: the rhythm dance, which must follow a specific theme, and the free dance. This season’s theme is “The Music, Dance Styles, and Feeling of the 1990s.” Other teams embraced the era directly, with British duo Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson skating to the Spice Girls and American favorites Madison Chock and Evan Bates performing to a Lenny Kravitz medley.
For reasons that are unclear, possibly due to licensing issues, Mrázková and Mrázek chose a routine with music that is half AC/DC and half AI. According to the International Skating Union, their official music for the rhythm dance is “One Two by AI (of 90s style Bon Jovi)” and “Thunderstruck by AC/DC.” The official Olympics website confirms the use of the AI-generated song for this portion.
This is not the duo’s first controversy involving AI music. Earlier in the season, they used a ’90s-inspired AI song that began with the lyric, “Every night we smash a Mercedes-Benz!” That line is taken directly from the New Radicals hit “You Get What You Give.” The AI-generated track also included other lyrics from that same song, such as “Wake up, kids/We got the dreamer’s disease,” and was even titled “One Two,” the opening words of the New Radicals track.
Before the Olympics, the duo changed the song. They swapped to different AI-generated lyrics that sound remarkably similar to Bon Jovi lyrics. For example, the line “raise your hands, set the night on fire” appears in Bon Jovi’s song “Raise Your Hands.” The AI vocalist also closely mimics Bon Jovi’s voice. It is worth noting that “Raise Your Hands” is not even a song from the 1990s. This was the AI music they performed to at the Olympics before transitioning into AC/DC’s authentic 1990s track “Thunderstruck.”
While the specific software used is unknown, this is how large language models are designed to function. They are trained on vast libraries of existing music and produce statistically probable responses to prompts. So a request for a song “in the style of Bon Jovi” will likely generate actual Bon Jovi lyrics.
The music industry has shown some interest in AI-generated artists. For instance, Telisha Jones used AI to set her poetry to music under the persona Xania Monet and subsequently secured a multi-million dollar record deal.
It is a shame that the Czech siblings’ remarkable Olympic debut is overshadowed by debate about their music choice. But it raises a fundamental question about the sport: isn’t figure skating supposed to be a display of human creativity?