Digital Afterlives: The Algorithmic Hauntology of AI Kishore Kumar's Saiyara

Abstract

This paper examines the cultural and emotional reception of the AI generated version of Saiyara song in legendary Kishore Kumar's voice created by RJ Kisna and Anshuman Sharma, a phenomenon that quickly outshone the original composition by Tanishk Bagchi featured in Mohit Suri's 2025 movie Saiyara. Using Mark Fisher's theory of Hauntology and Lost Futures from his book Ghosts of My Life, writings on depression, hauntology, and lost futures (2014), and Derrida's concept of Hauntology from his work Spectres of Marx (1994), the study explores how artificial intelligence reanimates the voices of the dead, transforming nostalgia into a digital afterlife. The research employs a qualitative discourse analysis of YouTube comments and online news coverage surrounding AI Kishore Kumar's Saiyara. The analysis argues that this act of resurrection exemplifies an algorithmic hauntology, where AI functions both as a preserver of a cultural-musical memory and as a spectral maker or conjurer reviving the past while destabilizing artistic originality. The findings also suggest that while such conjured spectres intensify nostalgia and perceived authenticity, but they also risk commodifying grief and closing  original imaginative futures not just a redo of past unless regulated by strict ethical frameworks.

Keywords: Digital Afterlives, Hauntology, Lost Futures, AI as Spectre Conjurer