13 May 2025 / News, Events

AI-ESC and Panel Discussion

On May 12 2025, the RDS hosted a Eurovision Style music competition featuring AI generated songs, followed by a panel discussion on the impacts of AI on the music industry, creativity and art.

On Monday May 12 2025 the RDS organised the first AI-ESC to coencide with the Eurovision coming to Basel.

After an open call for participants, 49 AI-Generated Songs were received for the 15 randomly allocated "participating" countries. The songs in Grand Finale, made in the style of an ESC entry for their country, were selected at random from all the entries from each of the 15 countries, so as not to make any judgements as to the quality of the AI output, or let the personal taste of the organisers interfere. The 15 finalists were then invited to submit AI generated images to accompany their songs.

The audinece in the Aula of the Kollegienhaus were then invited to vote for their favourite songs in an online poll. The full results are listed below.

After the vote, a panel made up of Prof. Lukas Rosenthaler of the Digital Humanitites Lab at the University of Basel and a musician, Lukas Loss from Interfinity Basel, also a classical pianist and concert organiser, and Christoph (Kriz) Flüeler, a Trend Scout and System Engineer for the SRF discussed the impacts AI is having on music and creativity, and the challenges and oportunities it poses for musicians and the music industry. The entire event was expertly hosted by Ana Maria Montero, formely of CNN.

Full list of Results

Listen to all the songs on our YouTube channel.

The event was also covered by the local Media:

• Bajour
• PrimeNews
• Telebasel
• Basler Zeitung