Some artists have a word for artificial intelligence: a dirty word that starts with “s.” “Slop” is one term for it. But as AI tools increasingly become part of everyday life, they are seeping into art, too.
On the campus of the Rhode Island School of Design, one of the world’s leading art schools, AI remains a contentious issue, according to a recent story in Brown University’s student newspaper, the Brown Daily Herald.
Morning host Luis Hernandez spoke with the authors of the story, Emily Feil and Izabella Piatkowski, about what they found on RISD’s campus.
Interview highlights
On RISD’s AI policies
Emily Feil: Actually, when you’re applying to RISD, you are able to include art that was assisted, or I think maybe even generated, by AI, as long as you’re very explicit about how you used it and why you used it. It’s on their official RISD website, which was interesting to us.
When it comes to actually attending RISD, though, the professors seem to have very different policies. I think it really is sort of a class-by-class basis. Of course, there are going to be mediums that it would be pretty difficult to use AI in, like sculpting, unless it was for ideation, because it’s actually something physically in front of you. But when it comes to their art and computation department, there’s obviously a lot more avenues to use AI.
On what they heard from students
Feil: I spoke to a few students, and I think that there is a sort of a range of feelings about it.
I think that some students are – particularly maybe in illustration or graphic design – some students are concerned because there are places and corporations that are using AI to generate their art, as opposed to hiring those people… Because AI is pulling from a lot of different things, and ultimately some AI models just sort of put out the average – that is not necessarily creating something entirely new. I think that there is concern in certain departments, for sure, but it is very department-specific. For people who are in the fine arts, it’s already sort of a difficult market to break into, but because they’re in the fine arts, and it is a physical medium, it’s less likely that AI will as quickly replace that.
On what they heard from professors
Piatkowski: I mainly spoke to professors and I think that opinions really differ across fields.
I spoke to Susan Solomon, who teaches in the literary arts department at RISD, and she was talking about how she’s really skeptical about the use of AI in the classroom. This year she introduced a poem recitation assignment in her class that she never would have done if there wasn’t for AI.
When I talked to people like Dimitris Papadopoulos, he was really excited, I think, about the use of AI in the field and how it can be used in different curricula. So it really does range across departments, and people are both excited and hesitant to introduce it into the classroom.
