The CEO of Beatoven.ai, Mansoor Rahimat Khan, discussed the future of AI and independent musicians in an exclusive interview with Free Press Journal.
The interview addressed the recent controversy surrounding an AI-generated track that became a chart-topper but was subsequently pulled down. Mansoor encouraged musicians to view AI as a tool to enhance their music composition rather than a threat. He emphasized that AI can make musicians more efficient and allow them to combine their creativity with AI-generated music. He also discussed the potential benefits of AI in solving copyright infringement issues and enabling content creators to produce original music.
The interview highlighted that AI will be a tool for users to start their tracks and then incorporate their own creativity to create complete compositions. He outlined three ways AI can benefit independent artists and music creators: solving copyright restrictions, fostering creativity through collaboration with AI, and reducing barriers to becoming a music creator.
Q. Beatoven.ai is India’s first AI-backed music tech startup. Coming from a family of musicians and being a sitar player yourself, were you always interested in innovating something beyond your own compositions and live performances?
I was very fortunate to be born in a family that has been dedicated to music for the past 7 generations. There has been constant innovation in this family generation over generation in terms of shaping the sitar and our own music style of one of the richest cultural heritages of this country i.e. Indian Classical Music. When you’re born in such an environment, you’re inspired by your family members and constantly there’s a hunger to innovate yourself. I was one of those unique cases in my family that got an exposure to technology at a young age. Being a 12th board topper in math, I had a natural inclination towards engineering and started working at the intersection of music and technology at a very young age. It was a rabbit hole in terms of exploration of music theory, music production, artificial intelligence and I’ve been active in this space for nine years now. When I found the right person in the form of a co-founder, it was obvious to me to make a huge impact, building a company is the best way forward.
Q. How has AI-generated music changed the game for content creators?
I believe AI is a powerful technology that has the potential to solve a lot of large problems in the music industry. We went after the problem of solving copyright infringement issues for video content creators on various content platforms such as Youtube, Instagram, Tiktok etc. We were of the opinion that Generative AI could be the best technology to solve this problem and started building the tech for it ourselves. It took us two years to build it and we ultimately launched the tool this year in January. The impact of what we’ve built has been massive, the most exciting part is the kind of use cases that have emerged from this technology. From Youtube creators to AI artists to rappers to Indie filmmakers to podcasters and advertisers, all kinds of users are using our tech to make music for their content and this is exciting to see. When we speak to our users, we hear from them that they feel they’re creating their own music rather than searching for music and this in my opinion is a big behavioural change.
Q. What is your argument against musicians and composers who worry that AI will make them redundant?
I would encourage musicians and composers not to see this technology as a threat but rather see it as a tool to make them more efficient towards music composition. Any new technology has this challenge to face where it is anticipated as a threat, however, one needs to realise that technology is just a tool to make yourself efficient and improve your processes. The smart ones adopt technology early and try to be ahead of the curve and I believe AI is just at the start of a cusp of evolutionary change in consumer behaviour.
Secondly, it is important for companies like us to build ethical business models that are inclusive of artists and can potentially be a new revenue source for them. We already pioneered this at Beatoven, all producers that work with us get paid for the data they contribute to our platform.
We periodically keep announcing budgets towards this initiative. We also send a report to all our artists monthly on how their contribution is impacting our product worldwide and artists are taking pride in working with us.
This article was originally published on Free Press Journal and can be found here.
