Czech ice dancers Kateřina Mrázková and Daniel Mrázek made their Olympic debut on Monday, an elusive feat that takes a lifetime of dedication and practice. But two brothers used AI music in their rhythmic dance routine, which doesn’t break any legal rules, but serves as a depressing sign of how cooked we are.
As Mrázek spins his sister in a cartwheel-lift-of-move that makes them look superhuman, one of the NBC commentators mentioned in passing, “This is done by AI, this is the first part,” referring to the music. In some ways, that admission is even more surprising than the gravity-defying tricks his siblings displayed on the Olympic ice.
The Olympic ice dance competition is divided into two events: rhythmic dance, where pairs must perform a routine that meets a certain theme, and free dance. This season’s theme is “Music, Dance Styles, and Feelings of the 1990s.” British ice dancing group Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson paid tribute to the Spice Girls, while United States favorites Madison Chock and Evan Bates danced to a Lenny Kravitz medley.
But, for whatever reason – licensing issues? — Mrázková and Mrázek dance a routine to music that is half AC/DC and half AI. It’s weird. What’s even more surprising is that this isn’t the duo’s first use of AI, and it’s not the first time that this option has been reversed.
According to the International Skating Union, the governing body that oversees competitive figure skating, the duo’s dance music choices this season have been “One Two by AI (90s-style Bon Jovi)” and “Thunderstruck by AC/DC.” The official Olympics website confirms that the duo used an AI-generated song for the rhythmic dance portion.
The Czech brothers have previously faced backlash for using AI-generated music. Earlier in the season, they played a 1990s-inspired song that began with the mournful declaration: “Every night we smash a Mercedes-Benz!” If that sounds familiar, it’s because that song comes straight from the ’90s hit “You Get What You Give” by the New Radicals (which, by the way, has an amazing music video shot in a Staten Island mall – the true essence of American suburbia!).
The AI-generated lyrics include the lines, “Wake up, kids/We got the dream disease,” and “First we run, then we laugh till we cry.” What a coincidence! Those words also appear in the song “You Get What You Give” by the New Radicals. AI’s song is titled “One Two,” which is the initials of… you can guess which song it is right now.
Techcrunch event
Boston, MA
|
June 23, 2026
Before the Olympics, the duo changed the song, replacing the New Radicals lyrics with some AI-generated lyrics that sounded suspiciously like Bon Jovi lyrics, as reporter Shana Bartels noted in November. For example, “raise your hands, burn the night” also comes from Bon Jovi’s “Raise Your Hands”… and the AI ”singer” sounds a lot like Bon Jovi, too. (Not to rub salt in the wound, but “Raise Your Hands” is not from the ’90s!) This was the music the boys danced to on Monday at the Olympics, before it switched to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck,” a real song from the ’90s written by real people.
Although it is not clear what software the band used to create this music, this is LLM that works as it should. These LLMs are trained by major music libraries, often in dubious legal ways. When instructed, LLMs generate a mathematically probabilistic response to the input. That’s useful when writing code, but say a song “in the style of Bon Jovi,” will probably end up using Bon Jovi’s actual lyrics.
And yet, the music industry seems to be temporarily fascinated by the idea of ”artists” who are not really real. Telisha Jones, a 31-year-old from Mississippi, used Suno to set poetry (hopefully) to music under the persona Xania Monet. He now has a $3 million record deal.
It’s a shame that the success of these Czech figure skaters at the Olympics could be ruined by talk about their use of AI music (talk I’m fully involved in). But come on! Isn’t this game supposed to be art?
