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https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/academics/2025/02/10/making-space-student-sorrow-over-ai

Obviously the students took it too far, but AI-generated art is super lame. And the profs are also overdoing it a bit comparing students to fascists.

But by the end it seems like they had some constructive dialogue.

I don't really see the ignorance and censorship, though I agree that this is a stupid hill to die on. And that's because fine art is one of those disciplines with a history of externalizing the production process, and using AI is contiguous with that--and there's a robust tradition of speaking to methods, flagging use of such tools, etc. We surely don't want artists to outsource all their work to AI, and there's a particular concern where animation is concerned, but this sort of assignment is also fine.

Get up in arms about the death of essays and other take-home work, not this.

Among other things, the article reminds us that commentators really need to resist the temptation to liken anybody and everybody who voices illiberal sentiments to fascists and the like.  They're immature students letting their emotional reactions get the best of them, not fascists.  One can point out that what they're doing (vandalism and calls to ban certain kinds of expression) is wrong without going there.

I don't blame the arts majors for fearing that AI is about to eliminate most of the already scarce jobs they're hoping for.  This article reminds me once again of how very sorry I am for today's young people for the world that they face spending the rest of their lives in. 

Quote from: apl68 on February 10, 2025, 07:56:59 AM[...]

immature students letting their emotional reactions get the best of them, not fascists. 

[..]

I don't believe the professor teaching the course was calling students fascists. The article quotes his email as stating "I would like to remind you of two key moments in history where a sole arbiter made the decision of what is and is not art," followed by the examples of censorship in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin. Then he encouraged open, civil dialogue, rather than vandalism -- the physical destruction of other students' work.

I don't think the professor has anything to apologize for. And I wish people would stop catering to the emotional immaturity of students.

QuoteAnd I wish people would stop catering to the emotional immaturity of students.

I don't think it's emotional immaturity of students, it's fear:

QuoteAnother handwritten note said "AI takes more jobs than it creates!!" claiming that a single AI-generated commercial puts numerous professionals out work, including actors, motion designers and video editors.

That fear is rational in the small, like the Luddites'. However, the nature of the student response to it yearns, unconsciously, for a feudal society -- a place for everyone, and everyone in his place. In the large, this is an invitation to stagnation.

[I don't give a shit about AI, by the way.]

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on February 10, 2025, 07:28:10 AMI don't really see the ignorance and censorship, though I agree that this is a stupid hill to die on. And that's because fine art is one of those disciplines with a history of externalizing the production process, and using AI is contiguous with that--and there's a robust tradition of speaking to methods, flagging use of such tools, etc. We surely don't want artists to outsource all their work to AI, and there's a particular concern where animation is concerned, but this sort of assignment is also fine.

Get up in arms about the death of essays and other take-home work, not this.

Quote"Part of why faculty aren't having as much anxiety around generative AI is because of our experience through history. Many of us have lived through some of those changes and studied history that tells us this is just another thing we have to adapt to. We forget that our students do not have that perspective."

AI is coming.  We cannot think that our kids (those of you who have them) and their kids will not think AI is a daily or hourly part of their lives and do many of the things we now train them to do.

Once there were horses, now there are cars.

And, I am sorry to say this, but that includes essays, too.