Kakul Srivastava, CEO of Splice—the sample platform behind massive hits like Lisa’s “Money” and Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso”—is raising concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence on human communication. With a career spanning executive roles at Adobe, GitHub, and Yahoo, Srivastava operates at the intersection of Silicon Valley and the creative arts, advocating for a human-centric approach to technology.
The threat of automated communication
As the leader of a remote-first company, Srivastava identifies well-written documents and real conversations as her most indispensable tools. She expresses skepticism toward AI-written documents, arguing that once the human presence behind words becomes uncertain, the quality of professional discourse suffers a permanent decline.
“Once you can’t tell whether there’s a person behind the words, the conversation you have about it becomes a different conversation, and a worse one,” she explains.
Ethical AI in Music
Under her leadership, Splice has intentionally avoided “push-button, get-song” AI tools that have made other platforms controversial. Instead, the company focuses on AI products that keep the human at the center of the creative process. Srivastava draws a parallel between this and her appreciation for live jazz, where the value lies in people making irreversible decisions in real-time.
Lessons from the failure of Glitch
Reflecting on her professional journey, Srivastava discusses the failure of the multiplayer game “Glitch” at Tiny Speck (the company that eventually became Slack). Despite its artistic beauty, the project failed because it did not account for major shifts in the industry—specifically the decline of Flash and the pivot toward mobile gaming. This experience serves as a reminder of the risks involved when failing to adapt to tectonic technological trends.
