Javed Akhtar says no threat to music space due to AI, but industry remains divided

Javed Akhtar said that there is no threat to music industry from artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has got people worried in the Indian music industry, with people debating whether it can replace artistes and their work.

Songwriter and lyricist Javed Akhtar said that, while there is a threat called AI, he is not scared.

“What makes me less scared than many is that AI is used for drafting anything that exists. Creation is based on the fact that something does not exist. AI is dependent on data. It can only pick and choose from different places and information that is already there. All art includes imagination, passion, and dreams. AI, until it develops a subconscious, is not a threat,” he said during a panel discussion on the use of AI in the music industry on December 5.

Akhtar added that the moment there is a new technology, there needs to be a law. “AI cannot be a horse without a reign. Tomorrow, if I ask AI to give songs of Anu Malik's composition, and when it does, Anu Malik should get a fair share of the profits. It has to be seen how this can be made feasible and implemented.”

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For policymakers, the new challenge is AI. “I always think that whenever technology changes, copyright law can adjust. I saw a statement on X (formerly Twitter) by Elon Musk recently that the digital god will render AI copyright lawsuits obsolete. But I say that policymakers will tackle this technological challenge to safeguard the rights of the creators and artistes under the copyright law,” said Dr G.R. Raghavendra, Senior Consultant - IPR, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), former joint secretary, Government of India.

He added, “AI is only a general-purpose assisting tool. AI is a machine, and it cannot replace humans, whether it be a singer or a composer. ChatGPT extracts data on a voice prompt, and in doing so, it must be reading a lot of data. It is not original. It is aggregating content. How can you give a copyright to something when it lacks originality? But there should be consent and compensation when someone's work is used by AI.”

Another panellist, Mayur Puri, an Indian screenwriter and lyricist, said that creativity is a human endeavour and copyright is for a human entity.

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On the other hand, Achille Forler, founder of Silk Road Communications and a music industry veteran, said that people are underestimating AI.

“If you see the music report released by EY (Ernst & Young) and the colours on it, it was done by AI. It is not a copy. It is new. This is the potential and the danger of AI. It is called AI because it creates and assembles a huge amount of data that the human mind cannot. It compiles data that humans may not be able to do in centuries, but it does in seconds. AI is a threat to the creative community.”

And AI is just at its beginning, he said. "We use AI for music search, and we search from half a million songs, which no human can do. We are going to launch in February or March a tool using which one can upload a video, and AI will undertake the story and visual of the video, and it will give you matching song options for the visual,” Forler said.

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He added that AI is a tool to improve productivity in the music industry. “There are artistes today who are creating art using AI. In two to three years, an ordinary person will be able to create music like that of an average musician,” he said.

Raghavendra also pointed out that artistes, especially performers, can use the metaverse to reach a wider audience. He gave the example of popular singer Taylor Swift.

“Last year, Taylor Swift at one place gave a performance that was viewed by 67,000 people, and later she extended that, and three million people watched it. Artistes can use technology for better monetisation of content.”

Mayur noted that some believe that AI is at a nascent stage and will evolve and create things that cannot be distinguished, whether they're made by humans or by machines.

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“The other point of view of creators is that machine learning cannot replace human creativity because AI does not have childhood trauma. I am sceptical about AI.”

He added that another issue with AI is the quality of work it will produce. “AI will create low-quality content. Due to this, there will be more value in human-created work in the future. AI can help creators manage labour-intensive jobs in data management. This is the good side of AI. On the other hand, intellectual property is being robbed by AI,” he said.

Akhtar said that AI can be of great help as long as it deals with facts and reality. “When it comes to creativity, it will depend on data. Most of the data it will process will be substandard. For creativity, one has to be reasonable as well as unreasonable. AI can imitate Shakespeare to an extent, but can it write a Macbeth? No," he said.