AI Art with Ardith

AI Art in the Classroom

The Bell Grant from the Bulldog Experience Office at Mississippi State University funded the AI Art with Ardith workshops held during the Spring 2024 semester in MSU’s main library as an experiential learning opportunity for students. The grant supplied the funds to bring Ardith Goodwin, Mobile, AL and access to Midjourney for students. We paired Ardith's workshop with our very own Megan Bean, Copyright and Information Policy Specialist, for a presentation on copyright, Fair Use, Ethics, and AI. Ms. Goodwin was thrilled to have this opportunity to work with students in a creative way & engage them in a discussion about AI and ethics in art. Classes who worked with Ms. Goodwin includes Global Contemporary Art, Visualizing Resistance in the Global South, and Digital Drawing, as well as an open workshop offered to faculty, staff, and students across campus. This digital exhibit is a culmination of student’s work in response to the workshop using the Bulldog Experience prompts for experiential learning and their creative process.

Copyright and AI

Most undergraduate art students have given little thought to the implications of copyright law.  They’ve had little reason to, since thus far they’ve operated within the low-risk cocoons of education and/or non-commercial social media. But given that these art majors will soon graduate and enter the commercial world as employees or independently selling their art works, it’s time they start thinking about how copyright and fair use might apply.

The Copyright portion of the AI Art with Ardith Workshops presented a wonderful opportunity to get the students’ gears turning about a range of relevant issues, such as:

  • Is it fair use to use individual artworks in training Midjourney/LLMs?
  • Are the outputs from Midjourney “safe” to use?
  • How can we use the principles of copyright law to use or own Midjourney’s output?
  • How can we use licenses to let others know how they can or cannot use our own artwork?