CLEVELAND — Jimmy Kuehnle said artificial intelligence can be a form of art.

What You Need To Know

  • The Cleveland Institute of Art incorporated AI into some classwork this year.

  • Students could use the A.I to tweak their work as long as they disclosed that they used the tool.

  • The A.I can help students overcome creative roadblocks and show them different versions of their work.

He’s a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art and said AI can modify artwork, even a doodling of a rabbit.

He snapped a photo of his drawing and uploaded it to the software. In seconds, different versions appeared.

“It copies your style and everything," Kuehnle said. 

He can make changes by giving it commands.

He said his students have used AI to tweak their work, because even though the software may alter it, the concept is still the student’s brainchild.

“These image editing tools and text generation tools are so powerful that I allow students to use it for anything," Kuehnle said. "It’s no different than talking to someone else or looking up some sort of content. The only thing I ask my students to do is to disclose that they’ve used it. And it’s kind of changed the way that we need to think about things.”

He said you should give the AI clear directions if you’re generating an image from scratch. Otherwise, it may take more than a few seconds to get the results you’re looking for.

“This is a bunny," Kuehnle said. "This is a very terrible prompt. So if I just say generate, who knows what we’re gonna get? It’s probably gonna look really bad.”

Kuehnle has spoken at an ethics in AI panel earlier this year. He said an important topic he discussed is what AI means for copyright laws.

“Right now these image generators are just scraping the internet without asking permission," Kuehnle said. "But that will be decided very shortly by courts.”

Kuehnle also said the school is expanding its AI use in its new Interactive Media Lab expansion, which likely will open in 2025. He said students may as well get used to AI, since it will only get smarter.

“AI is a creative tool," Kuehnle said. "They are creative people. And you need to use the most current creative tools to make your craft.”

Kuehnle said a great takeaway from using the AI is that it can help students overcome their creative roadblocks by expanding their imagination before the brush hits the canvas. 

“There’s nothing worse than a blank page," Kuehnle said. "In fact, when I see students with a blank page, I just scribble on it. And then suddenly your pattern recognition is saying oh a koala bear. And then you start continuing to draw. So this is like the best scribble on a page you could ever do because it makes actual images and spurs that creativity that’s already in your brain.”

Kuehnle said every piece of art starts as an idea. AI gives you a glimpse of it, because sometimes in order to be, you have to see.