India, May 2 -- There's an idea doing the rounds that has been repeated so often, it now passes off as the truth. It goes like this: with AI getting smarter every day, it is only a matter of time before those in creative professions-writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, even coders-will be pushed to the margins. Why pay a human when a machine can generate decent-enough output with the right prompt?

The truth is far messier, and far more interesting. Achyut Nayak, a software consultant now living in Mumbai, has been quietly watching this play out. The part-timer musician could lose himself in a loop of improvisation. These days, the music in him feels more like a funeral dirge than a festival beat.

Over the phone, we agree on a metaph...