AI and education: some reasons for hope

Not many reasons, just a few. In fact, mainly one for me at this moment: the experience in the course on Creativity and AI I run this semester with Matthew Dennis at TU/e. Official name: Creative work and Artificial Intelligence. We had a blast. In this post a description of the course and some notes on the spot.

A little monologue

Here is how I captured my experience in the course in a little monologue I have written last week on the train to our last class and read to the students:

Dear all,

Many things I have enjoyed in the past two months 

Many of them got somewhere lost, a few I have written in this little monologue:

I enjoyed the tension of checking how many students would enrol

The excitement of the design and preparation of the course

The fever that made me absent in the first class

Coming in and talking as a wannabe musician badass

The blink in some of your eyes during our conversations

The sleep I lost to prepare some of my presentations 

The puzzlement in you making the aesthetic exercise

The conversations on your creative enterprise

The successes and the mistakes we all made along the way

The creativity we all displayed

The pride in doing something little but new

The challenge of bringing it in in our real lives too

Ther joy of doing this together

Hey ChatGpt please try to feel the way we felt 

The wait for more of this

My apologies if something more you missed

The commitment to do better next time

All the success is yours; the mistakes are mine

The gratitude for attending and listening to me so far

The request of a big applause for all of us.

Students loved it – and so did we

We also took some time to reflect together on how the course went and how we felt. In addition to some specific (critical) feedback on specific sessions and practical points, we were obviously so happy to receive comments like the following: 

“This is how ethics must be taught!” / “I have learned more in this course than in any other standard ethics course” / “I thought a course like this was not possible at the university” / “thank you for creating the space to connect with other students and with the teachers in such a warm and personal way” 

What we did, in fact, is simple to say, often not easy to do, and of course I am aware that we were very lucky in being supported by our department and group. 

We did something we love and care about; we did it in a way that we were excited about and we thought students would enjoy (if you are not excited, why would students be?); in talking about AI and the future of creativity, we did not just talk about how we could remain creative, but we try to practice that creativity in the classroom; we did not only discuss how to design or use AI in a way that preserve what we value in humanity: embodied engagement, personal meaning, physical proximity, joy, excitement, curiosity, justice, respect… we tried to design a course in which we could practice and enjoyed these things. 

Course description

The course started from an idea of Matthew, with whom I had recently collaborated on similar topics in his OZSW graduate summer school on AI and creativity, and at the beautiful event at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin last summer. 

Here is the relatively stiff and moderately boring course description we posted on the study guide:

“AI systems can now perform a wide variety of creative tasks, often with ingenuity and speed that surpasses the creative power of human beings. This is proving useful for designers, artists, engineers and other professionals who wish to enhance their capacity to be creative in their work. AI can brainstorm new creative approaches to problems, edit and streamline ideas generated by humans, and has even offered strikingly original solutions to technical challenges that were previously considered unsolvable. These abilities raise urgent philosophical and ethical questions.  

This course will focus on the ethics of using AI for creative work, while also investigating the nature and value of creativity for human beings more generally. We will ask: How should we respond to the (seemingly) creative capabilities of AI? Should we take these creative capabilities seriously? Are current GenAI systems grounded in plagiarism or exploitation? What is the ethical value of human creativity? Does AI have anything to teach us about human creativity or what it means to be a human being? If so, what can we learn from it? What could be creative and just ways to design and use AI?

Students will gain comprehensive insights into the key ethical problems that using AI creatively requires us to grapple with, including the value of originality in creative work, the dangers of deskilling and plagiarism, the impact of AI on human freedom and justice at work, and the disruptive transformation of creative industries. The ethical stakes are high. The creative use of AI stands to transform the working lives of designers, engineers, and artists, but the challenges of deploying this technology responsibly are poorly understood.” 

A better sense of the course you can get from the list of the 16 sessions:

Creative Assignments

What really did the job in many ways, were the assignments. In addition to a standard written exam (in class), we had two different assignments:

1. GROUP CREATIVE PRESENTATION

In groups of 3–5 (depending on the final number of enrolments), you will: 

1. find one case study or “story” about the use of AI tools and creative work; you may pick one from the list “possible topics for presentation” (Canvas) or choose another one on your own; it could be a real story, an artwork, an activist initiative or other;
2. select one of the weekly topics and some of the related academic papers (either on the reading list or one you choose to discuss after discussion with one of the course teachers); 
3. utilize some of the concepts/theories discussed in the selected academic literature to engage with some philosophical or ethical challenge pertaining to your selected case study and, if applicable, some ways to address them; 
4. find a creative and engaging way to present the results of your reflections to the class in about 20 minutes. It could be a video, a visual product, a theatrical presentation, a game… or just a very good oral presentation with a power point. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A with teachers and students.

Please note:

• The use of AI tools is encouraged, but it must be fully disclosed and explained in the presentation, as well as documented as much as possible. 
• As in any shared (academic) group work, you may distribute the work among different group members, but each member must be fully aware of what others have done and why and to be able to answer questions about any part of the presentation, including the theoretical.
• This is not a course in an art or design academy, so while you are encouraged to explore and find creative ways to create your presentation, you are not expected to possess or acquire specific technical skills. The presentation will not be assessed for its technical or aesthetical quality but for its content and the ideas and efforts it reflects.
• The explicit use of concepts and theories from the course is a strong requirement for a sufficient presentation.

• INDIVIDUAL REFLECTION TEXT

1. You must write a text in which you present a reflection on your *personal*, *individual* *experience* of the creative process during the group assignment and what you learnt about creativity. Some possible themes to explore are: 

• What role was played by the creative interaction with other students in the creation of the assignment? 
  • To what extent the process has been creative, according to the definition provided in the course? 
  • Which factors enhanced or hindered your or the group’s creativity in the process? 
  • If you or other members of the group used AI tools, to what extent do you think that these supported the creative process as opposed to just make it more efficient? 
  • In which moment of the course or assignment did you feel more creative and why?
  • Were there moments or situations in which you made a direct experience or were called to recognize some of the ethical and political challenges about AI discussed in the course (plagiarism, justice, exploitation)? 
  • Any other thought related to your personal lived experience of the (creative) process?

• You can write a text or choose another suitable medium, for instance a video in which you talk or a voice memo. Other forms of expression may be allowed, please get in touch with the teachers if you want to go for one not mentioned here. Keep in mind that the goal of this assignment is to reflect on your experience in creating the creative group presentation not to create another creative product. Here the breadth and depth of the individual reflection is more important than the product itself. 
• If you write a text, this must be 1500 to 2000 words; if you submit a voice memo or a video, this must be 10-15 minutes.
• You are not allowed to use AI tools to produce the content of this assignment; language check and proof via AI tools are allowed; if in doubt ask the teachers. Unauthorised uses of AI tools will count as fraud and treated accordingly.   

A reason for hope

The presentations were superfun to listen to and we teachers learned a lot too. Topics covered were: LLMS and the standardization of language, Baby spawn and human intentionality in AI art; Replika (“The AI companion who cares”) and the risk of synthetic intimacy; Why AI is forbidden in Fanart groups; AI and the imminent death of music; AI, education and “borrowed” thinking; Diella for president! AI and political deskilling.

More generally, what I was struck by, and this is today’s reason for optimism about the future: A group around 40 bright science and engineering students of a technical university voluntarily enrolled in a course called “creative work and artificial intelligence” run by two philosophers and immediately and wholeheartedly embraced the formula: not learning more about AI tools themselves and not primarily how to use them in a creative way, but first and foremost reflecting on how to reclaim the role of human creativity and reflexivity as fundamental human and social skills. They spent two months engaging with us in creative and reflexive collective activities, while reading and discuss some good philosophical papers and other materials along the way. They worked hard to create an original and creative presentation on a topic of their choice, and they turned out to be as concerned as us about the ethical and political risks of AI; and very passionate and willing to protect and promote human creativity – and related values – in the design, regulation and use of technology, and in their life more generally. A little start. And in any case, it was great fun.