Ram Madhvani examines AI’s impact on storytelling at CII Summit

Filmmaker Ram Madhvani participated in a session on AI and storytelling at the 12th CII Big Picture Summit 2025, held on 1 and 2 December in Mumbai. The two-day forum brought together creators, technologists and industry leaders to examine changes driven by technology, shifting audience behaviour and India’s global storytelling ambitions.

Madhvani was part of the panel Responsible AI and the New Frontiers of Storytelling: Is There a Lakshman Rekha?, moderated by Biren Ghose, founder & CEO of Astra Studios. The panel also included Sudhir Mishra, Anand Neelakantan, Sunita Uchil and Gitanjali Sehgal.

The discussion focused on how artificial intelligence is intersecting with creativity, ethics and cultural identity in Indian storytelling. The speakers examined questions around artistic ownership, the implications of machine intelligence and the evolving language of cinema.

Drawing from his recent five-minute VR film on the Bhagavad Gita, Madhvani reflected on AI’s philosophical and creative implications. He remarked, “Today I think if you're not using AI or if you look down on AI, they now call you a specist… So we are all currently, hopefully, not speciesists, looking at a different species in a way in which it's digging.”

He added that technological progress has long shaped cinema, noting, “I think currently AI is something that's going to liberate us… So we're here to embrace that.”

On the subject of creative ownership, he commented, “Who would go up to receive the National Award? That sentient being, at some point, I suppose, would go up but for the moment, hopefully, the filmmaker.”

The conversation also examined cultural grounding in an era influenced by machine-driven systems. Madhvani said that imbalances in global datasets reflect earlier cycles of cultural dominance. “Earlier they came and conquered our land… And now they are conquering our data,” he said.

He noted the underrepresentation of Indian languages in AI training and added, “My biggest problem right now when I'm using AI is how rooted am I going to be… I’m finding that I'm not able to actually use AI as Indian as I'd like to.”

As the panel explored how global markets influence narratives, he pointed to a broader systemic concern emerging from AI-generated outputs, said, “They call it knowledge collapse; it's a gradual narrowing of information.”

Through these observations, Madhvani underscored the need for technological progress to be balanced with cultural context, ethical consideration and creative depth.

(afaqs! got this information in a press release)