(Ryan Davis | Student Life)

While people quickly integrated word-based generative artificial intelligence (AI) bots into their daily work and philosophical discussions about work, similar technology is raising major ethical and technical questions for academics and students involved in the art world.

Similarly to ChatGPT, users can prompt AI-generated art platforms, such as DALL-E or Midjourney, with specific requests, and bots output art using machine learning algorithms that iterate from preexisting pieces of art. 

Faculty in the Sam Fox School of Art and Design are grappling with questions of how to integrate these platforms into the course content, how AI will change the field of art, and how artists can have a role in broader conversations surrounding artificial intelligence.

Carmon Colangelo, the Dean of Sam Fox, said that Sam Fox professors recognize the inevitability of AI in art and are actively thinking about how the technology should be used in courses.

“AI is here to stay, I don’t think you can avoid it,” Colangelo said. “It’ll bring some really good things to our world, and it’ll do some really evil things too.”

He said that the conversation about AI in Sam Fox is ongoing and that faculty are in the process of discussing how the technology fits into curriculum and pedagogy. 

“We’re embracing the fact that it’s here, but we’re not necessarily just saying blindly, ‘this is a great thing’,” he said.

Jonathan Hanahan, an assistant professor in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, similarly said that Sam Fox professors are likely to ask students to use these tools in their courses. 

“We’re trying to encourage the use of these things because they aren’t going anywhere and they have a lot of potential,” he said.

In the coming years, Sam Fox will be implementing artificial intelligence into new programs and integrating the technology into existing courses. In addition, Colangelo said that the college is looking to hire a professor for Sam Fox with AI expertise.

“We’re hiring the first AI plus designer — a professor with an expertise in AI, architecture, art or design,” said Colangelo. “We’re [also] going to start a new master’s design program in emerging technology.” 

Hanahan said that this masters program will look to explore how to ethically create art and specifically discuss the idea of what constitutes original art. 

“Art and design think about authorship in a different way [than other] disciplines,” Hannahan said. “Appropriation has always been a part of art and design.”

Some professors are looking to spend class time on teaching students how to integrate the technology into their work.

Chandler Ahrens, an associate professor at Sam Fox, said that AI can be used as a tool for developing art projects.

“There are some faculty, myself included, who encourage our students to use these tools as a way of sketching out ideas,” Ahrens said. “It is a tool, and all tools give you feedback.”

Hanahan said that Sam Fox professors should make sure that students are engaged in a conscious dialogue of how and why they implement AI in their course work. “The context of how [a work of art] is created is much more interesting and valuable than just the thing itself,” he said.

Hanahan added that he thinks Sam Fox students are particularly prepared for the transition to a world with generative AI because they have experience working with tools, like Adobe software, that change frequently. 

“That foundational nimbleness is already there,” he said.

One of the specific topics that comes up in discussion about using AI in courses is how artificially generated content can be detected in assignments. 

“I think the whole idea of AI detectors is…a short-term solution,” Colangelo said. “We’re not going to police this thing.” 

Ahrens said he is not currently worried about AI infringing upon academic integrity.

“A lot of the faculty have the knowledge to be able to tell what images are generated,” Ahrens said. “At this point, it’s not as much of a concern.”

Like faculty, students are grappling with the implications of using generative AI in their art classes, and several said they believe AI currently lacks the ability to achieve their desired artistic goals. 

Max Schreiber, a sophomore studio art major, said that artificial intelligence isn’t a powerful enough tool yet for widespread use in an art classroom.

“I don’t want to say that we should never have that because I don’t know what the future of AI looks like, but in its current form, it would seem kind of silly,” Schreiber said.

While AI-generated art is still in its early stages, some Sam Fox professors are tinkering with ChatGPT as another tool in design courses. 

Josh Elboom, a sophomore studying Communication Design, said that his Digital Game Design course permitted the use of ChatGPT to produce code.

“Our professor said that this is the first semester that he’s implemented this as part of the course curriculum and how we’re designing our games,” Elboom said. 

Elboom said that AI could act as an equalizing force for those more unfamiliar with coding. 

“For some people, it eliminates that hesitancy to go into those more niche art areas, where they don’t have the technical skills,” Elboom said. “It’s a great way to meet people in the middle.”

Regardless of its potential to streamline some design processes, several students including  Ryan Pond, a sophomore architecture major, said they are hesitant to value AI art to the same degree as human-made art.

“AI art programs are not really creating something new,” Pond said. “They’re adapting the material that they have.”

Schreiber said he sees AI as a form of art, but said that the minimization of human input took away from it. He referenced “Heart on My Sleeve,” an AI-generated song that mimicked the voices of Drake and The Weeknd.

“Who really wants to listen to music created by AI?” Schreiber said. “I feel like it would take a lot of joy out of listening to the music, having no human behind it.”

Several students also hesitated at the thought of turning in work generated by artificial intelligence as their own, sensing that it isn’t truly their own.

“If I got an assignment and I put it into AI, I’m not sure how justifiable that is to use that as my homework,” Pond said. “If I’m feeding it somebody else’s work, ultimately I don’t think I’m creating anything.”

Ahrens said he doesn’t think that AI will ever completely replace artists, comparing AI versus human-generated art to amateur versus professional photography.

“There may be people who are perfectly happy with amateur photographs versus good photographs,” Ahrens said. “But as people learn to identify and become more accustomed with the artwork, they’re going to be more discerning about what appears to be good artwork versus less good.” 

AI may have broader implications for careers in creative fields beyond the classroom. Pond and Schrieber expressed concerns of how AI might make it harder for artists to work and maintain ownership over their work. 

“It’s gonna be interesting to see how many lawsuits have to happen before we find a way to make sure that people’s art stays their own,” Pond said.

Hanahan said that the rise of artificial intelligence can create a unique position for artists in the tech space.

He said that creative people can be leaders in this shifting technological landscape because their fields have long been focused on questions of intentionality and empathy, as opposed to the “build fast and break things” mentality of the tech world.

“I think this is a really exciting opportunity for creative disciplines to lead that conversation,” he said. “Instead of making high tech things, and then bringing designers in to make them pretty, I think there’s an opportunity to invert that and start it from a design process and move outwards so those ‘why and how’ questions are embedded from the beginning.”