This week I completed our first assignment for Augmenting Creativity, which was my first time using generative AI for creative purposes. In a way, it kind of felt like “cheating”, using someone else’s production and claiming it as mine. The artwork itself did not feel like it was mine, it felt like I had an idea but then someone else executed it somewhat how I wanted. In my critical reflective report I discussed how ownership is a slippery slope when it comes to AI art from McLoughlin (2024) reading  and this assignment really proved that for me. Although, it was definitely a fun task, and was a much quicker process than filming b-roll which I discuss further in my critical reflective report.

The readings for this week did bring up interesting points on the ethics and legal bounds of AI in the creative industry. Bender (2024) discusses the fears but also the promising aspects of creative AI and advocates for a human and AI coexistence. They also use the term “meaningful work” (Bender 2024, p3) for the human portion of the work, whereas the AI does the mundane portion of the work. McLoughlin (2024) then discusses that the critiques of AI happens for every new technology in the creative industry. These are discussed further in my assignment 1 critical reflective report.

Moreover, in our Wednesday class this week, we had to come up with an idea surrounding AI, make a slide, and present all int he one class. As someone who dreads presentations, doing all the work in the same class you present it was not all that bad. I think that because there was no pressure being graded on it, it felt more relaxed which lead me to articulate better. I had never put any thought on how AI was effecting climate change, but it was great to learn that it is doing so much to help (even though running it does emit carbon emissions.) As I said in my presentation I do think the pros outweigh the cons because AI is such a fast technology and we really do need solutions for climate change as soon as possible. Plus the other group that focussed on the cons, said that the big companies like Microsoft, etc are focussing on reducing their carbon emissions from running AI technology.

References

McLoughlin, J 2024, ‘The work of art in the age of artificial intelligibility’, AI & Society.

Bender, S 2024, ‘Generative-AI, the media industries, and the disappearance of human creative labour’, Media Practice and Education, pp. 1–18