Anoushka Shankar: ‘There are aspects to AI that can become compositional tools for artists to make things more streamlined’

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an area which is fast penetrating various facets of our lives without us realising it. How can music be left behind then? Ahead of her India tour in January, Grammy-nominated sitar player Anoushka Shankar tells us what she thinks about the technology and why she is wary of it:

"I think there is still a lot to learn about Artificial Intelligence. I read an interesting article a few months ago which compared the arrival of AI with the arrival of the Internet and how the technology was unleashed on the world before governments had done enough to put legislations in place and then they were taking forever to catch up. I think that is a very valid point. To have technology in the world that we haven’t really got the hang of yet, and it is already out there — I would think that’s really tricky. There are a lot of ways it can be used to the detriment of people, and that is something which we are already seeing."

"We don’t know how it is going to replicate people’s music or voices. On the other side, it is a tool that people can use within my industry in a way that 20 years ago people thought it was cheating to digitally edit a track and have lots of people play from different places because it wasn’t real, or to use auto tune would have been sacrilegious and now all of those are very normal tools. It is the same way you would cut and paste when you are writing a novel and not writing manuscripts anymore. So, maybe there are aspects to AI that can become compositional tools for artists that can then make things more streamlined or quicker. I’m all for looking into that side of it but I really am cautious of there not being enough legislation to protect artists when AI already exists in the world. I think that’s what makes me nervous about this technology."