Who owns India’s textile traditions in age of AI-enabled mass production?

After noticing that shops in Meghalaya sold gamusas with the same few patterns, Bitupan Deka learned that weavers in Sualkuchi, Assam, received about 2,000 rupees per design, with no royalties. The computer technology assistant professor at MIT University in Shillong has developed a system to generate new patterns and hopes it will help traditional designers rather than replace them. He plans to commercialise the design service if his university’s patent application is successful. Across India, textile motifs carry the histories and mythologies of places and are passed down through generations of weavers.