Playing to Cambridge’s legacy of innovation and debate, The Big Tech Debate, returns for the third year offering a dynamic, interactive session that challenges conventional thinking. Following last year’s lively debate on the role of government in UK Tech, 2025 promises to be even more electrifying, this session will feature thought-provoking discussions on the most pressing issues in technology. Namely:
"This house proposes that the integration of AI in the creative industry will ultimately undermine human creativity and devalue the essence of artistic expression." *
AI presents both exciting possibilities and significant challenges in creative fields such as film, literature, music, and art. On the one hand, it can enhance creativity by generating ideas, assisting with production, and democratising access to creative tools - enabling rapid experimentation and collaboration, even for those without formal training. AI can help artists push the boundaries of their creativity, offering new perspectives and techniques that were previously unimaginable.
However, AI also raises important concerns about originality, authenticity, and the value of human effort. The widespread use of AI-generated content risks flooding creative markets, making it harder for human artists to be heard. Moreover, over-reliance on algorithms could homogenise culture and erode the emotional depth rooted in lived human experience. Ethical implications, such as using people’s images in films after they are dead or the proliferation of deepfakes, must be confronted as AI becomes more embedded in our creative lives.
This debate asks: should we embrace this evolution, or stand firm in defending creativity as a fundamentally human endeavour?
Discover the Big Tech Debate programme
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16:30 |
Registration |
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16:55 |
Motion: "This house proposes that the integration of AI in the creative industry will ultimately undermine human creativity and devalue the essence of artistic expression." 
Dr Julian HuppertDr Julian Huppert is the Director of the Intellectual Forum at Jesus College, Cambridge, He is both an academic and a former Member of Parliament for Cambridge. He was Chair of the Independent Panel of Reviewers for DeepMind Health, and was ISPA’s ‘Internet Hero of the Year 2012’. He continues to work and advise on tech policy, particularly healthtech and edtech. 
Zickie LimZickie Lim heads up Mills and Reeve’s Venture Capital and Investments team. Her clients range from institutional VC funds managers, corporate venture funds, family offices and business angels and angel groups. She and her team also advise a range of entrepreneurial and fast growth start-ups, spin-outs and scale ups on their set ups, investment readiness and fundraisings from pre-seed and seed through to late-stage Series A, B, C and beyond. Her practice has a strong sector focus on Technology (IT/telecoms/software, deep tech, cleantech and agritech) and Life Sciences. Zickie is passionate about working with entrepreneurial technology and life science businesses with disruptive technology and business models. Her team is one of the UK's leading advisers in the university spin-out sector having worked with more than 250 spin outs from universities advising all the various key stakeholders. Zickie is a member of UKBAA, EIS Association and co-founder of Women4Technology. 
Meredith O'ShaughnessyMeredith O’Shaughnessy is a cultural strategist and experiential architect with an engineering foundation, known for translating big ideas into story-led, tech-enabled experiences that move audiences and deliver commercial impact. Her work spans luxury, entertainment, sport and the public sector, including Formula 1 and government bodies on projects such as Expo 2025 Osaka, for brands such as Aston Martin, Microsoft, Rolls-Royce, The Savoy and The Macallan. Named to Walpole’s 2025 Power List and winner of Dezeen × Bentley’s “Luxury Retail Store of the Future,” Meredith assembles artists, technologists and designers to re-imagine how people connect with culture. She has served as a Creative Ambassador for the UK’s GREAT campaign and is a founding member of the World Experience Organisation. Her work has featured on the BBC, ITV, CNN, the Evening Standard and Vogue. 
Bill ThompsonBill Thompson is the Head of Future Value Research in BBC Research & Development and a member of the advisory team that provides evidence-based assessments of emerging technologies to guide BBC product and technology strategy. He has worked in and around the internet since 1984 and was head of new media for Guardian Newspapers in the mid 1990's. He joined the BBC in 2009 to work as head of partnerships in te archive development team, and was head of partnerships for the Make it Digital initiative before joining R&D. A well-known technology journalist and commentator he appeared on Digital Planet on the BBC World Service from 2001-2023 and writes for a range of newspapers and websites. 
Graham LovelaceGraham Lovelace is an award-winning journalist and senior editor whose career has been spent in the intersection of media and technology. Today he’s a leading strategist and writer on the impacts of generative AI on human-made media, the ethics and behaviour of the AI companies, the future of copyright in the AI era, and the evolving AI policy landscape. In a career spanning five decades, Graham has been a journalist, editor, consultant, producer and entrepreneur with a keen interest in the future of media. He was a member of the team that launched Teletext Limited in the UK, becoming editor-in-chief of the biggest and commercially most successful information service of its kind in the world. He was a founding director of Associated New Media that went on to launch Mail Online, and the founder of media intelligence provider Lovelacemedia, sold to the Press Association in 2004. He’s worked as a journalist at the BBC, Visnews, BSB News, ITN, Channel 4 and PA, and is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. A pioneer of new ways of engaging with the information that guides our lives and an advisor to numerous start-ups, Graham is now applying his extensive media experience to explaining the opportunities and risks present in the highly disruptive age of generative AI. He shares his research in Charting Gen AI, a highly acclaimed and must-read global newsletter that keeps subscribers – senior executives across major media companies, law firms and consulting groups, plus lawmakers and their policy advisors, as well as creator groups, trade bodies and individuals representing every facet of the creative industries – in over 100 countries informed on developments. In guest columns and media interviews, plus highly engaging keynote presentations on stages around the world, he busts myths, exposes hype and calls out bad behaviour. 
Elizabeth DiaferiaAfter a distinguished and extensive career in international financial markets, the creative industries and tech, Elizabeth has her own creative industries and tech consultancy, and leads CITIB, the Creative Industries Trade and Investment Board, working with industry and government since 2019. Through her work in government Elizabeth has been Head of Creative Trade Engagement in the Department for Business and Trade, as well as leading on creative industries investment, advanced manufacturing, robotics, and AI. Elizabeth has worked extensively in the fashion sector, heading government relations for the British Fashion Council and the Institute for Positive Fashion, as well as an advisor to fashion brands and fashion tech. She has held senior roles in Westminster since 2010 covering policy, public affairs, communications, and advocacy. Elizabeth is a regular contributor, moderator, and speaker at key events. Elizabeth is a Mentor for Commonwealth First, a programme developed by the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. She also sits on the Advisory Board for Deeptech Labs, Cambridge, Finito Education, and a sustainable fashion tech company. She is a former advisor to Cambridge University Fashion Accelerator. |
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17:55 |
Closing keynote/Wrap up/Closing remarks |
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| 18:00 | Event Close |
*draft agenda, subject to change
*the narrative is subject to change but demonstrates the topic to be discussed.