Teaching AI can be as thrilling as it is challenging. This became clear one day when three students walked out of my class, visibly upset. They later explained their frustration: after spending years learning their creative skills, they were disheartened to see AI effortlessly outperform them at the blink of an eye.
This moment stuck with me – not because it was unexpected, but because it encapsulates the paradoxical relationship we all seem to have with AI. As both an educator and a creative, I find myself asking: how do we engage with this powerful tool without losing ourselves in the process? This is the story of how I turned moments of resistance into opportunities for deeper understanding.
The experiment: bringing AI to the creative process
Last term, my team and I explored the intersection of AI and creativity through an experiment inspired by 1960s “happenings”. Drawing on Salvador Dalí’s surreal performances with flamenco musicians, we recreated a modern version by combining live jazz, spoken word and OpenAI’s DALL-E.
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The experiment raised an intriguing question: what happens when you replace the human with AI? Could this reveal something profound about the future of industrialised creativity or would it strip away the soul of the artistic process?
For my students, it was an opportunity to engage with cutting-edge technology – but, for some, it was also a confrontation with uncomfortable truths about their own creative journeys.
Turning frustration into reflection
When the students walked out, their frustration spoke to a fear many share: that AI diminishes the value of hard-earned skills. In the discussion that followed, we uncovered two key insights.
AI as a launchpad: For those with strong foundational skills, AI can accelerate creativity, allowing them to experiment and push boundaries in ways previously impossible.
The danger of dependency: However, relying on AI too early in the learning process can stunt growth, leading to average outcomes and missed opportunities for deep, co-creative play.
This dichotomy became central to our conversations, sparking rich debates about the role of technology in shaping not only creativity but identity.
The future of creativity: a framework for thought
Looking ahead, I often turn to Marshall McLuhan’s theories to make sense of AI’s impact on creativity:
1. Enhancement: AI amplifies our creative potential, enabling rapid production and experimentation.
2. Obsolescence: It reduces friction in the creative process but risks removing valuable collaboration and struggle.
3. Retrieval: Interestingly, AI is bringing back the power of words, as seen in live performances where spoken poetry is transformed into real-time visuals.
4. Reversal: As AI’s success grows, so do its downsides – oversaturation, a potential loss of meaning in art and questions about whether we still want to create when machines can do it for us.
These insights shape how I approach teaching AI, helping students navigate both its possibilities and pitfalls.
What I’ve learned: a Gen X perspective
As someone from Generation X, I approach AI with a mix of awe and caution. My generation remembers a pre-internet world, and we experienced the internet’s early utopian promise. For us, AI feels like another moment of magic – but also one that comes with a cost.
For younger generations, who have grown up with technology’s mixed blessings, the magic of AI may not be as apparent. And yet, I believe there’s an opportunity to bridge that gap by focusing on what AI can enhance in human creativity, while being mindful of what it could take away.
AI is here. It won’t go away. The changes are happening everywhere all at once. When we try to think about it, so many ideas try to come through the door at the same time. Marshall McLuhan’s framework helps both teachers and students separate out the strands into distinct lines of enquiry. I am convinced that together, a little bit of theory will save us from that terrifying prospect of the student who cheats themselves forward from the beginning of secondary school to the end of their education.
Chris Hogg is a lecturer in creative digital and social media at Royal Holloway, University of London.
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