AI art generators have a place in K-12 classrooms, say researchers

Creating visual art with the help of artificial intelligence can be a great way to teach kids about the ethics of ubiquitous technology, says a University of Alberta education professor.

Today’s K-12 students live more in sync with AI than previous generations imagined. Algorithms permeate nearly every aspect of their lives, from Google searches to the algorithms that choose their music, movies, and TikTok videos—influencing the way they make choices and see the world.

But creating art is one way to eliminate that hidden effect, or at least help students understand what algorithms do “behind the scenes,” says Patty Pente, an artist and professor in the Faculty of Education. are

“Canada’s teachers and students today are AI-enhanced cyborgs — they just don’t realize it,” he and his co-authors Cathy Adams and Kenzie Gordon wrote in a recently published article. Done by Fine..

Pente has encouraged his own student teachers to see humanity as a new breed of “posthuman” hybrid beings whose identities are partially shaped by AI. The ideology of humanism—inherited from the European Enlightenment—assumes that we have sole agency to act and manipulate the world. Posthumanism, however, sees this relationship as reciprocal, and that humanity is “dynamically constituted by the materials of our environment as we influence them,” Pente and her co-authors write. .

“This helps avoid overly simplistic, deterministic approaches to moral dilemmas.”

In teaching students to create art, Pente recommends critically “collaborating” with AI image generators like the Dall-E 2. Developed by OpenAI — the company that developed ChatGPT — uses a generator. Image data Text descriptions are set to generate new images and art called prompts.

Depending on the age of the students, a teacher can begin to question how algorithms work, how images are selected from a given data set, and what inherent biases may determine this selection. What technology means for copyright and Intellectual property Or to create “deepfakes” that spread misinformation?

As with Google or any other AI platform, “we get so used to using it that we stop thinking about how it works,” says Pente.

“I would love to see students use creative AI—with prompts about specific topics—but also work with the content,” she says. “We don’t want to lose that because there are so many amazing things that happen when kids are immersed in making art with their hands.”

For example, a student might write a story, enter segments of that story into an image generator, and then, based on the images it encounters, create new artwork with traditional materials such as paint. can do. Teachers will then get students to think about the ethical issues that arise from their work.

“At the core of it, we want to allow students to be creative and have fun in the process,” says Pante. “Teachers will decide how much of the underlying theoretical problem will be woven into the lesson.”

I see AI as a companion Creative processThe paper’s authors say that — rather than just a tool — it provides students with “a window through which they and teachers can reflect more deeply on their emerging subjectivities in the technological world.”

“Critical and playful engagement is key to developing an informed and ethical stance on these powerful technologies,” he writes. “It provides the ground to create new knowledge that is arresting and unique.

“Artmaking has this power.”