Last week, a University of Alaska, Fairbanks undergraduate student was detained by police after ripping off pieces of AI-generated art that were hung up at a student art exhibit — and chewing them up in protest.
As the school’s student newspaper The Sun Star reported, undergraduate student Graham Granger was arrested for criminal mischief after masticating at least 57 of the 160 images that had been carefully arranged by fine arts student Nick Dwyer.
The incident was an eyebrow-raising illustration of the collective exhaustion with being surrounded by the outputs of generative AI, a fierce debate that has gripped the art world. Some, like Dwyer, see it as a powerful tool for self-expression. Others, like Granger, argue it’s quite the opposite, undermining human authorship and taking away from artists who don’t use AI for their work.
Now, in an interview with The Nation, Granger, a film and performing arts major, has spoken out about what motivated him to turn his teeth into weapons against the AI onslaught.
“It’s a protest against the school’s AI policy specifically and it’s performance art because I needed something that would elicit a reaction,” he told the publication. “So this could reach more people.”
It’s unclear which policy Granger was referring to exactly. The University of Alaska’s academic misconduct policy states that “work that is created by an artificial intelligence engine is covered by the student code of conduct.”
“Work submitted for credit that was created by AI-engines can be addressed using the academic misconduct portion of the student code of conduct,” the policy reads.
However, whether arts students are allowed or encouraged to make use of the tech remains unclear.
Granger also revealed that his act wasn’t premeditated, admitting that he didn’t even “know about the exhibit before that day.”
But once he spotted Dwyer’s work, a series of AI-generated images that explore “AI psychosis” and the crafting of false memories, he was appalled at what he saw, particularly when contrasted with other, non-AI art displayed at the exhibit.
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