Editor's note: The winning cover image can be viewed online in the Winter 2024 issue of iConnect, the alumni magazine of the College of Information Sciences and Technology.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) debuted a new special topics course in fall 2023. “Emerging Technologies in Popular Culture” welcomed undergraduate students from any major to examine the opportunities, challenges and concerns surrounding generative artificial intelligence (AI). As part of their course work, the students could enter their art in a contest to be featured on the cover of iConnect, the college's annual magazine.
The introductory class equips students to create and critique AI-generated artistic expressions in art, writing, music and games. It also examines the ethical questions — such as those involving plagiarism, ownership, copyright and the definition of art itself — that arise in response to evolving AI technology.
"This survey course explores the generative AI used to produce and consume popular cultural artifacts," said Erica Fleming, assistant director of teaching and learning for the College of IST, who taught the course. "The content and assignments are directed at helping students to both create and critique digital media in ways that demonstrate their understanding of, engagement with, and reflections upon what it means to be an artist."
The iConnect editorial team proposed a cover contest to celebrate the new course. Under Fleming's direction, the students created images using generative AI tools. They then selected their favorites from among the images to be featured on the iConnect cover.
The Assignment
“The objective of this assignment is to use a generative AI tool to create a piece of art that reflects your personal style, preferences, and/or life goals. You will use an iterative approach, starting with one prompt and continuing to add and refine using additional prompts until you get to a final product that you are happy with.”
There were 330 students in the class. The assignment was required, but students could opt out of the iConnect cover contest. Working individually, the students generated a total of 298 submissions using generative AI text-to-image tools, such as Adobe Firefly, Bing Image Creator, Craiyon, DALL-ES and Midjourney.
"The students had to include a minimum of 10 iterations of their artwork," Fleming said. "I didn't make anything off-limits because all of the tools were used for class have restrictions on them to avoid mature content. The students were free to be creative."
Learning while doing
The AI and Art unit of the class presented the students with the opportunity to use AI art tools to create something each time they met for class. As they learned more about AI, the students became increasingly creative with the prompts and learned more about the output of the AI tools, according to Fleming. She added that the unit leading up to the project shined a light on the following topics:
- Prompt chaining
- History of AI art
- Ethics of using AI-generated art
- Current art copyright cases involving AI
- How generative art is impacting the creative economy
- How AI is helping art historians
- How to critique artwork, whether created solely by humans or co-created with AI
"Quite a few of the students are majoring in cybersecurity analytics and operations," Fleming said. "So, another big topic was the privacy and security of these tools."