Paul Cegys, School of Critical and Creative Humanities
Summary: Consider this course assessment structure from DAC 329/COMMST 329, where students are encouraged to use AI while developing their understanding and application of AI ethics, from consent and copyright to environmental costs.
Instructional goal: Students participate in a sustained investigation of how to use, critique, and think clearly about generative AI image tools, including an understanding of
- consent and copyright,
- the displacement of working creatives,
- the question of authorship,
- aesthetic homogenization and slop,
- bias and representation,
- the environmental and infrastructural costs of running AI systems,
- the concentration of power among the few companies that build them, and
- the ability to analyze how GenAI can support the visual design of a digital presentation.
Students also develop familiarity with GenAI image-generation tools they may encounter in the workplace, as employers are likely to look for this competency in new hires.
Process:
- Students explore legal and ethical questions related to AI such as intellectual property rights, how the training data was built, and the displacement of working artists. They research the terms and conditions of the AI tools they plan to use, and practice citing and being transparent around the use of AI-generated imagery in their own work.
- Students experiment with AI to see the range of stylistic variations they can create and identify appropriate styles for the topic of their presentation. They explore how to use design language to refine their prompts.
- Students read an article about AI slop in art that introduces the idea of making deliberate choices about when to work with AI-generated tools and when to step back from using them, along with the design vocabulary that is developing related to the use of AI.
- Students generate a series of images for a professional role or character description and analyze the results to identify patterns in the representations with regard to gender, race, age, or physical appearance.
- Students are reminded of the cognitive offloading that can happen when using AI, the homogenization in design that happens when others also frequently use it, and the importance of developing good practices to maintain a distinctive and critical edge. They are also reminded to consider the material costs of using GenAI in terms of water and energy usage in their choice about whether to use AI.
- In each iteration of their work towards developing their final presentation, students are encouraged to include AI-generated imagery and to reflect on its impact on the product as a whole and their own process of creation.