The Intersection of Art and AI
Is generative AI friend or foe? That鈥檚 a question professors and students are facing in 色情视频鈥檚 School of Art and Design鈥攁nd the answer isn鈥檛 always black and white.
By Michael Klitzing
IN DECEMBER, STEPHANIE WISE was out on her board as she鈥檇 been countless times before. This time wouldn鈥檛 be like the others.
The avid surfer and 色情视频 multimedia major paddled into the Pacific alongside her father at a secluded spot near Marina del Rey Harbor outside of 色情视频. She soon found they had company鈥攁 very large, very territorial sea lion.
Wise didn鈥檛 see the animal until it was practically on top of her.
鈥淚t breached over me and blocked the sun out of view, fully out of the water,鈥� Wise says. 鈥淚t looked into my soul and it growled at me in a monstrous terrifying way I could never forget. It was awful.鈥�
Wise was unharmed but returned to shore shaken and exhausted.
Her father, whose back had been turned during the frightening encounter, insisted she was overreacting. Ever the artist, Wise decided she had to make him see it to believe it when she got home. Typing detailed prompts into a generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) image generator, she produced a series of images of a demonic beast鈥攁ll fangs and claws鈥攂earing down on a self-portrayal, frozen in terror.
鈥淚t would have taken me hours to draw that situation,鈥� Wise says. 鈥淚n that moment, when I was so exhausted and it was so fresh on my brain, I wanted those visuals to come out immediately. My dad changed his tune when he saw the images.鈥�
As the wave of ever-advancing generative AI sweeps over academia, debate rages about the fantastical opportunities and existential threats presented by this technology. And the uncertainty of the moment is felt deeply in the art world.
Some see a powerful new tool in the artist鈥檚 toolbox鈥攐ne that opens up new possibilities for creative expression. Others see danger lurking beneath the surface, threatening the creative process.
One can find adherents of both viewpoints in the 色情视频 School of Art and Design, which cultivates promising artists looking to push creative boundaries in media ranging from the tactile鈥攖hink paint, clay, metal and wood鈥攖o the digital.
鈥淲e鈥檙e all trying to adjust to something that鈥檚 happening very quickly and changing very rapidly,鈥� says Ava Aviva Avnisan, assistant professor of integrated design. 鈥淭here are a lot of questions. What does this mean for teaching? How do you allow, or not allow, students to use these tools? How do we prepare students for that future in their fields?
鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 ever feel like there鈥檚 enough time to be having these conversations.鈥�
AT THE INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL, 色情视频 has largely embraced the use of generative AI within ethical guardrails. The university鈥檚 Information Technology Division offers resources and training for faculty and staff, including an Academic Applications of AI Micro-Credential launched last summer. In March, the California State University launched a program with OpenAI鈥檚 ChatGPT Edu, an AI-powered assistant tailored for academic and research environments that鈥檚 free to faculty, staff and students.
James Frazee, 色情视频鈥檚 vice president for the Information Technology Division and chief information officer, says that generative AI presents an opportunity to push the boundaries of creativity and rethink how the 色情视频 community engages with technology in the creative process.
鈥淲e鈥檙e preparing our students to be at the forefront of a rapidly evolving digital landscape,鈥� Frazee says, 鈥渁nd we鈥檙e committed to fostering responsible, ethical and critical engagement with AI, ensuring that our community doesn鈥檛 just use these tools but also understands their implications and leads in shaping their future applications.鈥�
Avnisan is something of an early adopter. As a tech-savvy new media artist specializing in performance, photographic and interactive installations and film/video, she鈥檚 begun using AI in her own work. Her film essay 鈥淪pecters of Home鈥擯rologue鈥� explores the connections between her own Arab-Jewish family鈥檚 exodus from Iraq and Iran and the 1948 displacement of Palestinians; it also makes extensive use of generative AI animations. She and collaborator Doug Rosman, assistant professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, fed 8mm footage from Avnisan鈥檚 childhood in Jerusalem to the AI engine one frame at a time to create a unique style of AI-generated animation.
鈥淲hen I first saw these images, I was like, 鈥楾here鈥檚 something there that is so strange and so haunting,鈥欌�� Avnisan says.
In the past year, Avnisan has started inviting students to engage with generative AI as a 鈥渃ollaborator鈥� to complete assignments in her creative coding class. But she does so in a structured way. For instance, rather than having students prompt ChatGPT to create a specific visual design, she will ask them to think about the architecture of a script first, do the planning and then ask AI to create sections within their plan.
One of Avnisan鈥檚 most enthusiastic students is Wise. Born and raised in Venice Beach, Wise is interested in pursuing a career in 3D art or marketing. She is deeply immersed in the action sports culture, and her art includes airbrushing designs on surfboards. Lately she鈥檚 been tinkering with robotics and virtual reality.
鈥淚 am an artist, and I do believe in the craft,鈥� Wise says. 鈥淏ut now that we鈥檙e moving forward into this new realm of having generative AI accessible to us, I think it鈥檚 really cool to experiment with it. Now I feel like I鈥檓 approaching artwork in a scientific way.鈥�
MATTHEW HEBERT is hardly an enemy of technology. The professor of furniture design and woodworking teaches courses in digital fabrication and 3D modeling. This semester, he鈥檚 teaching embedded computing for artists and designers. When it comes to generative AI and its implications for artistic expression, however, he鈥檚 concerned about its potential to stifle creativity and innovative thinking.
鈥淚 feel like it鈥檚 taking the most interesting part of the process and handing it over to a computer,鈥� Hebert says. 鈥淵ou try to get students excited about ideation and conceptualization of a design, thinking about it from their own lived experience or idiosyncrasies. Now they can just take the prompt and feed it into a computer that is going to pull off everybody鈥檚 experiences.鈥�
Hebert, who works under the studio name 鈥渆leet warez,鈥� explains that his own process with 3D media requires coming up with an idea, reflecting on it and improving on it in multiple iterations. But what happens when generative AI makes your first iteration convincingly good enough?
鈥淵ou鈥檙e just going to be happy with the idea, right?鈥� Hebert says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 sort of easy. It鈥檚 given to you. And now you鈥檙e just going to sort of march forward and try to make it a reality. To me, as an artist, that鈥檚 a pretty sad way to go through the process.鈥�
What鈥檚 striking in talking to both skeptics and early adopters of generative AI is how much shared apprehension exists about what lurks beneath the surface. Avnisan admits to harboring concerns that generative AI may one day make her replaceable as an educator.
But she also knows that AI is not going away. Her charge, as she sees it, is to get students to use the technology ethically鈥攁nd in a way that augments artistic expression rather than smothers it.
鈥淭he way I see my challenge as an educator is to create a class in which I can convince students that there鈥檚 a right time and place and a wrong time and place to use these tools,鈥� Avnisan says. 鈥淗ow do we get them to want to not take the shortcut when the shortcut鈥檚 available?
鈥淭hat鈥檚 a hard challenge as an educator鈥攂ut it鈥檚 also kind of an exciting challenge.鈥�
For Wise鈥檚 part, she isn鈥檛 afraid of the unknown. She insists the freedom to interface with generative AI has fueled her inspiration and curiosity.
鈥淣ow that the technology is learning on its own, and I can collaborate with it and even boost my own educational level with it, I feel like I鈥檓 able to do a lot more,鈥� she says.
鈥淚t鈥檚 making me a superhuman without putting a computer chip in my brain鈥攊t鈥檚 just on my phone.鈥�