By Haripriya Mehta, MIT (BS & MEng), Co-founder of MehtA+
For students interested in participating in the AI in Visual Arts Camp (Grades 5–12), check out https://mehtaplus.com/courses/ai-in-visual-arts-camp/. Live virtual classes for Session I take place on March 23, March 30 & April 6, 2024. Session II takes place on April 13, April 20 & April 27, 2024.
As we open up the registration for AI in Visual Arts Camp for Spring 2024, I cannot help but reminisce about previous sessions. The camp often attracts two types of students, 1) those who are passionate about art and interested in the different ways AI can be used to create art, 2) those who would like to make their first foray into the vast field of AI. The wide age range of the students attending the camp — 5th to 12th graders — who are from all over the world makes our discussions all the more interesting, but more about that later!
While the AI models used to create art are perhaps more complex than other fields, the end product of these models (the art!) is so much more accessible than the end product of other models. That is why studying AI in Visual Arts is a good first step for students wanting to be exposed to AI. The no-code and discussion-based approach of the camp allows students to learn about the inner workings of different AI models used to create, authenticate and restore art on a high level.
These AI models can not only be used to create drawings and paintings (as most of us have seen or experienced), but also be used in fashion, sculpture and film. AI is already having a tremendous impact on business and creative content. Recently, for instance, filmmaker Tyler Perry halted his $800 million studio expansion after seeing the amazing videos OpenAI’s Sora AI model can create!
As AI becomes more versatile and refined over the years in creating art, it begs the question — Is AI-generated art a beautiful fusion of human creativity and ingenuity and advanced AI algorithms? Or will this period of AI-generated art be marked with fission and bitterness — where AI causes loss of employment and makes us doubt the answer to the fundamental question, “What does it mean to be human?”
Such questions are often raised and debated by our students. Most students are marked with optimism — they believe that AI will augment human creativity instead of replacing human creativity entirely. But they are not afraid to be AI’s harshest critics when, say, an AI model decides to draw a cat with three eyes and three paws! Yes, serious conversations are often followed by jokes and laughs.
Who owns AI-generated art? Ethically and legally speaking, is it all right to use said AI models which may be trained on artwork where permission was not obtained? How do Convolutional Neural Networks, Variational Autoencoders, Generative Adversarial Networks, Recurrent Neural Networks, Transformers and Dimensional Reduction work in the domain of visual art? We cover these topics and so much more. I share cutting-edge research, with students, including the award-winning AI art research I worked on when I was at MIT.
Besides lectures and discussions, students are given the opportunity to work in groups and create AI generated artwork. Students create and curate their own AI + Art galleries by providing input to AI (through text or images) and often titling the artwork after the AI has generated it. Students love seeing the artwork that their classmates have created and often admire and discuss whether their artwork can ever be sold for half a million. Yes, AI generated art has been sold for that much!
Towards the end of the camp, students work in groups and participate in the $100K MehtA+ Money Startup Pitch Competition where they pitch startup ideas related to AI + Visual Arts. And while 100K MehtA+ money is not worth anything in the real world, with how hard these students work to win, one might think it did!
We teach students common entrepreneurial terms and show them winning pitches of $15K Creative Arts Competition at MIT for inspiration. For the competition, students are put in groups according to their respective ages. I often tease the students whether we should have separate divisions in the competition for middle school students and high school students or if the middle school students and high school students should be vying for the same prize. The high school students always protest my suggestion that all students should be competing for the same prize because they believe they can never beat the creativity of middle school students!
The students present their pitch deck to judges, who always have a difficult time in choosing a winner, since all of the startup pitches are quite interesting. Winning pitches in the past included 1) a device to help visually impaired people appreciate art, 2) an app to identify the ideal price of painting an artist is likely to sell and 3) an algorithm that helps people figure out the latest fashion trends on social media.
As one student put it,
“The AI in Visual Arts Camp was one of the most memorable activities of my summer. It was a wonderful experience, and I’m still in touch with some of the people I met through the camp.”
For the first time this year, we will be enabling region-specific pricing in order to make the camp more accessible to students overseas. I am looking forward to making more memories and hearing more perspectives from our students about the role of AI in Visual Arts. In the meantime, let me know your opinions about AI in Visual Arts in the comments.
