Art schools grapple with AI

Amid concerns over artificial intelligence technologies impacting jobs in the creative arts sector, art and design universities across Canada are remaining cautious while working to ethically integrate AI into their curricula. 

In April, a report by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage investigated how AI will impact creative industries, for better and for worse. The report highlighted concerns about how AI will “devalue and displace human creativity by competing with human content,” and create further challenges in the job market. 

Miriam Kramer, executive director of OCAD University’s Cultural Policy Hub, said arts and culture is one of the first and hardest-hit sectors to be impacted by AI. 

“We’re in this climate, not just of AI and technology, but of fewer and fewer resources. Organizations are really stretched and tested,” she said.  

“We’re seeing AI as civic infrastructure in this country, and that it can be used for everyone across sectors. But we’re prototyping it through arts and culture, because we know these sectors are the ones that are getting impacted most quickly, and probably have the least resources and capacity to learn it and adapt quickly.” 

Sandra Gabriele, OCAD U’s vice-president, academic, and provost, said she encourages faculty members to develop a critical position on AI and prepare students for the real world. 

“The reality is, it is happening around us, whether we’re aware of it or not,” she said. “So even if they don’t want to let their students use it, or if they don’t want them to be working with it in their workflows, even the critical teaching of it as a tool in the way that it’s shaping society, that is still our responsibility as educators.” 

Balancing AI and traditional art education 

OCAD U has been integrating AI into its curriculum and has developed guidelines on using it ethically. The technology is meant to act as a tool, subject and medium, said Dr. Gabriele. Students are encouraged to integrate AI into their workflows, while choosing technologies that are safe, protect their intellectual property (IP), and do not use stolen IP.  

“They’re already coming in familiar and exploring with it in all kinds of ways in their own lives outside of the university,” she said.  

She said critical literacy around AI is being addressed in classes, including how it impacts authorship, labour, and intellectual property, and understanding when and why to use it. 

“It also includes a rethinking of what it means to work with AI: what are some of the questions around intellectual property and what are some of the broader implications for creative industries?”  

AI displacing student jobs 

With AI replacing entry-level jobs in the creative industries, finding work placements for students has become difficult, Dr. Gabriele said.  

“The challenge for us is where are students going to be placed. Because that bottom rung of jobs is very quickly disappearing,” she said. “So we’re really at the forefront of confronting that, and this is where having good industry partnerships really helps. But it also is challenging us to rethink a little bit about what work-integrated learning could look like.” 

She said work-integrated learning opportunities with OCAD are expanding, and could possibly be turned into extended residency programs or fellowships with industry partners. However, government funding support is needed. 

In its report, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage recommended that the Department of Canadian Heritage “continue to support artistic and cultural production,” and “develop and implement guidelines ensuring that existing and future cultural funds, such as tax credits and programs supporting cultural production, support human creative jobs and content.”  

The report also urges the federal government to develop a national AI literacy strategy for all educational levels and professional sectors. 

Ms. Kramer said a national coalition has proposed to test public AI through arts and culture, and to build closed systems in Canada that can be used for organizations to become more efficient and understand their audiences.  

Integrating AI into artistic creation 

Other arts education institutions are also taking an assertive approach to navigating AI in their curricula and encouraging students to think about integrating it into their workflows.  

In January, Emily Carr University of Art + Design began a research project to explore ethical frameworks and to understand disinformation and GenAI in art and design education.  

At Concordia University, leading artists and cultural practitioners who work with AI are being invited into classrooms. The current expert, Christian Beltrami — an artist whose practice spans film, visual effects, and emerging technologies — will lead an intensive course this summer that will explore using generative AI as a collaborative tool in different creative disciplines. 

Although AI might be able to automate artistic production, students and artists still crave the deep, hands-on experience of creating art. Dr. Gabriele emphasized that skills-based learning remains foundational at OCAD U. 

“It’s not moving away from that and only learning to train with or work with AI, but it’s always the two in partnership together,” she said. “We’re not moving away from the more foundational parts of what an art and design education has always looked like.”