Panel Discussion: Tool or Threat? AI and Its Impact on Creative Industries

For the third event of its Heidi Goes AI series, the Consulate General of Switzerland in San Francisco, in partnership with the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, will be hosting a panel of distinguished artists, curators, technologists, and AI industry leaders to discuss the opportunities and challenges that generative AI presents for contemporary creativity. In the face of shifting intellectual property and copyright landscapes, the panelists will explore how to protect both artists and cultural artifacts – such as Heidi – while enabling new creative explorations.

Max Sills is General Counsel at Midjourney. He has a background in both engineering and in legal advising for AI and open source. Midjourney is one of the world’s most widely used AI image generators and was the primary tool for most submissions to our competition, including the winning entry by Debora Giannone.

Esther Hunziker is a multimedia artist from Basel, Switzerland. She has worked across diverse media since 1993, deconstructing and reimagining digital technologies and their relationship to the human experience. Hunziker has won the Pax Art Award 2024 for her work with AI.

Kat Walsh is Copyrights Counsel at Creative Commons. CC’s free, standardized licenses allow creators to share their work while ensuring they retain control over it. Their work is crucial for artists and creatives as it fosters collaboration and wider distribution. Previously, Walsh worked for the Wikimedia Foundation.

Jaron Lanier is a computer scientist, composer, visual artist and author. He is known as a pioneer of virtual reality (VR) technology, having founded the first company to sell VR products in the 1980s. Through his books and talks, Lanier advocates for a more ethical digital future that values human creativity and individuality. He currently serves as the Office of the Chief Technical Officer Prime Unifying Scientist (OCTOPUS) at Microsoft.

Professor Edward Lee is a legal scholar specializing in how the Internet, disruptive technologies, and globalization challenge traditional legal frameworks. He teaches copyright law and international intellectual property law at Santa Clara University and has co-authored books on these subjects. He is also the founder of the Website , where he examines AI-related controversies, like copyright litigations.

Martin Rauchbauer is the former Tech Ambassador for Austria, the executive director of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Silicon Valley and the Founder & Co-Director of the Tech Diplomacy Network. Having decades of experience in connecting diplomacy, arts, technology, and the environment, he will serve as the moderator for the discussion.

Host or Publisher the Consulate General of Switzerland in San Francisco