A discussion around the use of artificial intelligence in the Indian music industry had been relegated to the fringes until recently, when one of Bollywood’s most celebrated musicians, AR Rahman, admitted to using it to recreate the voices of late singers Bamba Bakya and Shahul Hameed. And while Rahman had acquired the required permissions before employing the voices, the subject of ethics appears to perturb Ankur Tewari when we broach the subject of the use of AI in the Bollywood music industry. 

“In the industry, while people are playing around with it, it hasn’t been part of the mainstream music industry. Questions have been raised about the ethics of this practice, and those need to be addressed before one can generate an income from it. People are treading carefully to ensure that their rights are not affected in the future, because a lot of lives are dependent on royalties and intellectual property. If I have written some work, and somebody uses it as a database to create more work, I need to benefit. Otherwise, someone will use my intellectual property without rewarding me for it. But if people benefit from all the work that they have created, it should be fine,” says the musician, quick to add that once the legal aspects of this issue are ironed out, he would be happy to jump aboard the bandwagon and employ appropriate AI tools.