Czech ice dance duo Kateřina Mrázková and Daniel Mrázek made their Olympic debuts on Monday. They hooked judges with a mesmerizing performance that mixed rock music and AI. The duo wowed the crowd with a shimmering hip-hop fusion short dance. Their performance — with music that merged sounds from the legendary rock group AC/DC with AI-crafted lyrics — shocked audiences and raised conversations around AI’s place in artistic impression.
Mrázková and Mrázek’s day-to-day featured lyrics from the 1998 smash single “You Get What You Give” by New Radicals. The generative AI lyrics nailed the vibe of the song. They had some amazing details in there like, “Wake up, kids/We got the dreamer’s disease,” and “First we run, and then we laugh ’til we cry.” The agreement duo took a courageous step. They substituted new AI-generated lyrics while preserving the message of the originals, coming up with music-inspired bombast like “raise your hands, set the night on fire.”
Their AI-generated music was the source of most of that controversy before their Olympic appearance. Critics have raised doubts about the appropriateness of injecting technology into a discipline that has always been based in artistry and human imagination. Despite this backlash, the official Olympics website confirmed that Mrázková and Mrázek indeed utilized AI-generated music for their performance, which aligns with this season’s competition theme: “The Music, Dance Styles, and Feeling of the 1990s.”
The short program ice dancers made the boldest music choices, creating the most intriguing mood right from the start. It revived that other 1990s-era boomtown thing. Their performance showcased astonishing technical control and depth of feeling. Yet discussions around the ethics of using AI in art took focus away from their success. The women’s arts alliance fanned the flames of a current debate over what’s required for authenticity in performance. Can AI ever really reproduce the emotional nuances of human creativity?
Aside from Mrázková and Mrázek, artists are increasingly testing the waters of AI in music. Telisha Jones has been in the news lately for utilizing Suno, an AI imaging tool, to turn her poetry into music. She produces under the vivacious mask of Xania Monet. As for Jones, he’s already signed a $3 million record deal, demonstrating how AI is starting to be accepted in creative industries.
Mrázková has an equally distinguished academic pedigree, including a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and service as a Princeton in Asia Fellow in Laos. Yet her remarkable successes in the championship ring are undermined by continued public debate over their musical selection. As they took to the ice, they likely felt a mix of pride in representing their country at such a prestigious event while navigating the complexities of modern artistic expression.
