Zurich airport feels like any other. Long stretches of tile; travelators morse-coding the expansive white hallways. Autonomous cleaners silently roam these halls, squeegeeing the floors. They take on an almost human form, silently stopping as travellers cut in front of their path. Up and back, up and back.

I think about the people who used to push these machines. What do they do for a crust now? I think of my own work - pushing a blinking cursor up and back, up and back along the endless corridors of a word processor.

Over 250 autonomous (presumably human) delegates congregated last weekend in the land of chocolate, timekeeping, multipurpose tools & Roger Federer for The Human Factor of AI Conference hosted by the Swiss Business School. I spoke as part of a group discussing ‘human expression reimagined: expanded canvases or diluted authenticity?’ I joined the ‘creative’ panel - tasked with weighing the impacts of AI in the creative industries.

Here are a few scribbled notes from my time onstage, in no particular order.

Elaine Chang, President at Tibi, a luxury fashion house, raised the idea of friction in creativity: “As a business person, I value speed and efficiency. But, I am more interested in friction's role in producing great outcomes. Where does friction exist in a world dominated by AI?”

I believe we’ve all felt the frictionless, numbing ability to glide to an outcome with AI.

Agnes Bliah, Music Industry Operations Director at Deezer, cited a recent statement that shows nearly a third (28%) of all music uploaded to the streaming service is now AI-Generated.

Bliah’s comments prove to be serendipitous. Lying in my bed later that evening, I hear a song by Xania Monet, the first AI-generated artist with enough radio airplay time to hit the Billboard Charts. Surreally, ‘her’ charting song is about the struggles of an adolescent girl growing up without a father figure in her life. I fall asleep.

Back at the conference, art historian Jessica Priebe posed AI as “the next step in the long history of artists delegating, collaborating, and designing the conditions for creation.” She argues that today, artistic labour often lies in the concept and the curation of ideas rather than handmade objects and forms.

Beyond the tired analogies (AI is like a knife, what matters is how we use it), the most informative and inspiring perspectives came from ‘the next generation’ - university & high school students who joined each panel to bring a new lens to the discussion.

The overwhelming sentiment of the students on my panel is one of AI rejection. Swiss Business School Science Undergraduate student Victoria Smirnova, a photographer, painter and writer, opened with a bold statement: “I stand firmly and unapologetically against the use of AI in art. Because when art loses its humanity, it ceases to be art, and I refuse to celebrate that loss.”

Visual artist & SBS student Gleb Zavalkovskiy invoked a giant of British-American poetry to share his perspective.“As T. S. Eliot once said: ‘When forced to work within a strict framework, the imagination is taxed to its utmost — and will produce its richest ideas. Given total freedom, the work is likely to sprawl.’“

These views were echoed by other singers, writers and painters on the panel from ages 14 to 22. I was truly inspired by the youthful wisdom, caution and deep thinking of my co-panellists. I left the conference rejuvenated and excited by the ‘next generation’ of leaders, creators and innovators who are grappling with these issues everyday, as we all are, and staying true to their values.

At 5pm on Sunday evening I find myself retracing my steps down the same Zurich airport hallway to go home. There’s no sign of the autonomous hall cleaner. Perhaps even autonomous robots deserve a day of rest.