--- title: "Spotify Doubles Down on AI Slop As It’s Being Flooded With It" description: "Ella \"Lorde\" O'Connor slammed Spotify's AI-powered \"About the Song\" feature for spewing misinformation about her music." date: "2026-07-19" modified: "2026-07-19" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/spotify-ai-slop-lorde" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" --- # Spotify Doubles Down on AI Slop As It’s Being Flooded With It ![A color-treated illustration of a robotic hands playing a piano.]() *Shutterstock / Futurism* Spotify, like pretty much every other digital platform, has been [grappling]() with a torrent of low-quality AI-generated content flooding its streaming service. The deluge has resulted in [cheap-and-fast]() AI-generated music [infiltrating algorithmic playlists]() and even [charting](). The slop has led to [artists]() — including [dead musicians]() — being [impersonated]() by [AI-powered squatters](). "The low-effort content you see where it's mass-produced, it's mass uploaded, it's AI slop... we've removed over 75 million spammy tracks in the last year," Spotify executive Sam Duboff recently [told the *Australian Financial Review*](), adding that AI has "taken existing spam tactics and taken them to a new level." Yet, as Spotify fights to keep its platform from being strangled by AI slop, it's also moved to incorporate multiple AI features, like [AI playlists]() and Spotify's [AI "DJ]()," into its platform. And this week, one of Spotify's AI features made for a frustrating situation for a top artist. In February, Spotify [launched]() a feature called "About the Song," an AI-powered summary feature designed to draw on "third-party sources to surface interesting details and behind-the-scenes moments" about a given song and the artists behind it. In its [announcement](), the company described the feature, which is still in beta, as a way to bring "stories and context directly into your listening experience." But it shouldn't come as a surprise that artists aren't happy with having their life's work woefully misrepresented by ill-informed AI. https://twitter.com/PopCrave/status/2077872334392684871 On Thursday, the singer Ella "Lorde" O'Connor [took to Instagram]() to share a screenshot of the "About the Song" summary of one of her songs. In the screenshot, the AI feature can be seen declaring that "on her Ultrasound World Tour, Lorde turns Current Affairs," a song off of O'Connor's most recent album, "into a full-on performance piece, stripping down to underwear while a dancer pours water over her stomach so the song plays out like the shower scene she talks about on stage." According to a blurb at the bottom of the summary, it [drew information from]() the Australian outlet *The Music*, which reviewed O'Connor's tour. But according to O'Connor's Instagram story, this isn't true — that performance happens in her show, but in a different song. There was an inaccuracy in *The Music's* review, and that made its way into Spotify's AI summary. "Not only is this inaccurate (not the song I did that in)," O'Connor wrote in the caption of the Instagram story, "but reducing a song to an AI-generated meaning right at the source feels like it limits free interpretation \[in my opinion\]. At least make it possible for artists to opt out please." "I'm gonna go out on a limb," the musician added, "and say we don't want this." In a statement, Spotify [told *Rolling Stone*]() that "we built 'About the Song' because fans want to dig into the stories behind the music. It's still in beta." "The info comes from articles across the internet, and when something's off, we move fast to fix it, like we did here," the streamer added. "Getting it right matters to us." It's the latest example of a digital platform attempting to walk the careful line between fighting off low-quality AI material and incorporating AI into its platform where it can. But judging by its latest stumbles, Spotify is seriously struggling to find that line. **More on AI and music:** *[Spotify Caught Doing Something Unbelievably Ghoulish With AI]()* ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()