RUNDOWN:
17:45     Registration
18:00     Opening Remarks
18:05     Lecture Performance
18:30     Conversation between Dr. Huang and Mr. Lau
18:50     Q&A
19:10     Closing Remarks
19:15     Drinks Reception         
20:00     End

ASHK Members Ticket: HKD 150
Non-Members Ticket: HKD 200

Asia Society Hong Kong Center (ASHK) and the Asian Cultural Council Hong Kong (ACCHK) are thrilled to co-present a special program on When AI Creates: Ethics and Economics, featuring a lecture performance by Rujing Stacy Huang, one of the world’s leading thinkers performing humanistic critique on the encounter between AI and the arts, followed by a discussion between Dr. Huang and Alan Lau, Vice Chair of M+, Hong Kong’s largest contemporary art museum.

Artificial intelligence can now create paintings, write novels, and even complete Beethoven’s unfinished symphony or compose hit songs. Join ASHK and ACCHK as we delve into the possibilities and pitfalls of this technology, particularly as it relates to the humanities, and consider the ethical, cultural, economic and social implications of AI when applied to the arts.

An ACC grantee (2015), Rujing Stacy Huang earned her PhD in (ethno)musicology from Harvard University and is currently Assistant Professor of music at the University of Hong Kong. While at HKU, Huang is also affiliated with the Department of Philosophy where she serves as a Principal Investigator at the AI & Humanity Lab. Her current research sits at the intersections of musicology, critical AI studies, and philosophy. She has written on the ethical, cultural, and socio-political implications of artificial intelligence when applied to the arts, with a latest focus on the political economy of music AI. At HKU, she teaches courses covering such topics as popular music, AI music and creativity, music business, and music entrepreneurship. 

As a scholar, Huang has won various awards, held leadership positions at academic societies, and sat on committees of international conferences. Before joining HKU, she worked on the multi-year, EU-funded MUSAiC project (“Music at the Frontiers of Artificial Creativity and Criticism”). Besides her work with creative AI, she runs another project which examines the twenty-first century revivals of yayue, ritual music historically performed in the courts of ancient and imperial China, and addresses such issues as musical nationalism, exoticism, and ritual and performativity. She is developing this work into a monograph.

As a nonprofit entrepreneur, Huang serves as a director (and previously co-organizer) of the AI Song Contest (stichting AISC), a Dutch foundation which runs an annual international competition exploring human-AI partnership in songwriting. The contest made the front page of The New York Times in 2021, and has been widely covered in the media (Science, Scientific American, Billboard, Music Business Worldwide, MIT Technology Review, BBC, etc.). She also sits on the jury panel of several other AI music contests.

Her first official single (2022), commissioned by and released exclusively with NetEase Cloud Music of mainland China, entered the DSP’s Top 30 Folk Genre Chart and Top 100 Hong Kong Folk-Pop Chart. She briefly performed as an improviser (with the Harvard Univ. Studio for Electroacoustic Composition) and was a member of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk) in 2020. She is now preparing her debut album as a singer-songwriter.

Alan Lau is Vice Chair of M+, Hong Kong’s largest contemporary art museum. He is also Chairman of ParaSite, the longest standing non-profit local art space. He co-chairs the Asia Pacific Acquisition Committee of Tate, and the Asia Art Circle of Guggenheim.

He has been a technologist for 20 years, with leadership roles in McKinsey, Tencent, and Animoca Brands. He founded McKinsey’s digital practice and led as Asia Head, co-founded Tencent’s insurance arm WeSure and served as CEO, and currently leads investment and manages a portfolio of 500 companies as CBO of Animoca.

His involvement in AI started at McKinsey, leading Big Data projects for clients. At Tencent, he managed data scientist teams to run industry-leading risk prediction models. At Animoca, he invested in companies working in generative AI music, AI-assisted education, decentralised AI infrastructure, etc.

In the broader culture sphere, he serves on the board of Tapestry, which owns Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman. He also makes angel investments in F&B, retail, health & beauty, and technology.

About ASHK and ACCHK: 

Asia Society Hong Kong Center (ASHK) is an independent non-governmental educational organization established in 1990 by a group of Hong Kong community leaders led by Sir Quo-wei Lee, then Chairman of Hang Seng Bank. It is one of 14 centers of Asia Society’s diverse network across the globe, with the mission to navigate shared futures for Asia and the world in the fields of arts and culture, and business and policy. 

Asian Cultural Council Hong Kong (ACCHK) was initiated in 1986 to offer cultural exchange fellowships to artists, scholars, and arts professionals from Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China. The organization’s aim is to provide such grants to support the development of meaningful connections between individuals and communities in Asia and the United States.

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The views and opinions expressed are those of the speakers and participants and, unless expressly stated to the contrary, do not reflect the opinion, position or official policy of Asia Society Hong Kong, its members, or its committees. Asia Society Hong Kong does not endorse or approve and assumes no responsibility for the content of the information presented.