A.M. Khan
The music in Khowar in particular and other languages spoken in Chitral in general is going through a critical transition period. Rather they face the trial to keep their phonetic expression intact against the transformative AI-powered versions of music coming to market every day.
This year brings a variety of AI-generated music in abundance. They are what the producer wants of the vocal and percussions supposed to be for a song created through AI-application(s). That happens to be what s/he wants and the production comes out wherein some words in the stanzas are pronounced by AI pre-programmed language models and ecosystem. This provides, with its vast distribution capacity, invariably new phonetic expressions of the few words which are foreign to a particular language i.e. Khowar.
For those who understand the language and have phonemic awareness spot in the new expression is generated vastly in songs through AI-programming. The songs productions through AI transpire better than of its original version in many cases, and therefore this music has become demanded in the market.
There are the platforms and activism for language preservation and revitalization in Chitral but this matter remains not addressed. Looking at the veracity of this challenge the language preservation is equal to clipping the wings of the flying birds.
In other words, the human agency either lacks understanding of this case or not fully equipped with the required technological capacity to produce something in tune with the standard operation of a ‘locale’ poetic style. It’s also equally challenging for local poets to imagine ideas and formatting the poetry better than the AI-applications do.
Keeping the local poetry and its music in perspective against the AI-powered phonetic ecosystem, the alternative ways and means to address this challenge becomes inevitable to keep the originality in production in the age of artificial intelligence, and its application in music production.
It is also equally problematic how the young generation realizes and keeps track of whatever is produced through AI is different in some words from what continues to be in its original vocal structure, resonance and tone of phonics of the language(s) spoken in Chitral.
The customization of the AI-powered tools or models in tune with the local language formation is another way out to deal with this matter, otherwise it appears that we are evolving with something alien to the local language expressions, particularly the ‘special alphabets’ used in Khowar.
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