Is AI Art Really Art?

Course Description

This course aims to introduce students to AI art applications, debates concerning copyright protection of AI-created works, philosophies of art, and debates about the ethical use of AI in the field of cognitive science.

Students will be expected to participate in workshops in which they make use of open source (free) AI art applications to produce artworks, or familiarize themselves with the process of creating art with AI assistance (if they are already artists). Students will also be expected to participate in class discussions on course topics. As the instructor, I will guide students in their creative ventures (e.g., how to make a good prompt, how to write a good paper, etc.) and foster their thoughts about the role they and the AI play in the creative process.

In terms of assignments, students will be expected to provide one final artwork, along with a prompt, a description of the work, and a short (1500 word max) argumentative paper discussing whether they think what they have produced is really art. These short papers must reference at least two of the course readings. The final artwork provided may be either the output from the AI application, or if a student is already an artist, they may instead provide a hand-made work that uses an AI output as reference, in which case both the AI output and the final artwork must be provided.