It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Heather Zheng, Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, as the distinguished speaker for CDS. She will share insights in her talk, “Navigating Generative AI’s Impact on Human Creatives.”

Speaker:

Prof. Heather Zheng

Neubauer Professor of Computer Science 

University of Chicago

Date:

6 May 2026 (Wednesday)

Time:

10:30am-11:30am

Venue:

HW312, Haking Wong Building, The University of Hong Kong

Abstract:
Today’s generative AI models can produce artistic content that closely mimics the styles of human creators. Many of these models and their variations are trained on, and then used to replicate, the distinctive styles of individual artists without their consent or compensation.   The generated outputs are also used to mislead individuals and businesses seeking to license or purchase authentic, human-made artwork.  In this talk, Prof. Zheng will discuss the progress and challenges on protecting human creatives against such harms, and those on distinguishing AI-generated content from artwork created by human artists.  Finally, she will discuss the issue of limited transparency in model provenance and ways to address it.

 

Biography:

Heather Zheng is the Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at University of Chicago. She received her PhD from University of Maryland, College Park. Prior to joining University of Chicago in 2017, she spent 6 years in industry labs (Bell-Labs and Microsoft Research Asia) and 12 years as a faculty at University of California at Santa Barbara. At UChicago, she co-directs the SAND Lab (Security, Algorithms, Networking and Data) together with Prof. Ben Y. Zhao. She was one of MIT Technology Review’s Innovators under 35 in 2005; her research on cognitive radios was featured by MIT Technology Review as one of the 10 Emerging Technologies in 2006. More recently, her work on protecting human artists against unethical data exploration received the USENIX Internet Defense Prize, the Chicago Innovation Award, a special mention in TIME Magazine Best Inventions of 2023, and the Community Impact Award from the Concept Art Association in 2024. She is a fellow of ACM and IEEE, and has served on several editorial boards and steering committees for journals and conferences. 

   

All are welcome to attend.