Rage with the machine: artificial intelligence takes on Eurovision

Australia took top honours in the only Eurovision contest of the year in an event that could shape its better known, human, version.

Abba's 1974 Eurovision winning song "Waterloo" was among the songs used to train AIs competing in the AI Eurovision Song Contest. Olle Lindeborg

Nic Fildes

May 16, 2020 – 12.00am

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Saturday's Eurovision: Shine a Light event is not the show fans have come to know and love but these are exceptional times. Over two hours all 41 songs chosen for this year's contest will be honoured in a non-competitive format. But another Eurovision song contest has already taken place and the winning song is Australian.

The inaugural AI Eurovision Song Contest, organised by Dutch broadcaster VPRO, is one of the first events to take the process of using algorithms to compose original music out of academia and avant-garde experimentation and into the commercial world.

Financial Times