Opinion on Trust | Nicholas Tse's AI Innovation Can't Save PO Zhao Ting

So, does a prestigious institution need celebrities to drive student enrollment, or do celebrities need to borrow a prestigious institution to put a shiny stamp on their own image? This question never has an answer. In any case, the line is becoming increasingly blurry. On April 2, at the University of Hong Kong’s Future Media Institute auditorium, the hall was packed to capacity; more than a thousand people queued up to catch a glimpse of Nicholas Tse.

During the event, Nicholas Tse talked about his new song “Push Back and Start Over,” directly saying that the present moment is at the “intersection of culture, technology, and human nature,” and that every industry can’t avoid AI. He shared that more than ten years ago, when he was running PO Production Office (Post Production Office), he scanned his own appearance to create a digital version, then told his manager: “If Emperor Entertainment Group wants to keep being successful 10 years from now, every artist should scan themselves like me.” The result was that “everyone thought I was completely out of my mind.”

That forward-looking message sounds exhilarating, but it also carries a hint of satire. Because the AI “push it back and start over” that Nicholas Tse referred to is precisely the fate that PO Production Office—he founded it himself, and it was once regarded as a Hong Kong post-production powerhouse—ultimately could not escape.