Marx, Artificial Intelligence, and Creativity
Just as electricity changed what it means to be a human, Artificial Intelligence is changing what it means for humans to think and to be creative. I have seen examples of this change over the past few years as a professor who has met with different small groups of art students studying design, twice a year since 2020 to discuss their thoughts on emergent AI. I have held these meetings at three different state universities in geographically different areas of the United States: Texas, Illinois, and New York. In every conversation I have been impressed with how passionate and informed the students are. In the years since beginning these discussions moral and ethical objections remain high, but students now use AI more and more in their personal art and art related coursework. This impacts what it means to teach art students how to be creative....
The rate and speed in which students have adapted AI into their creative output is particularly interesting. During my most recent meeting with students late in 2024, when I conducted an informal survey asking how many students used AI with their written or image based design homework, 8 out of 10 admitted that they have. When I first posed the question in 2020 no student claimed that they used the tool. In fact, students responded strongly, their answers overwhelmingly communicated a sense of repugnance at the thought of using AI in their work, a "never over my dead body" attitude. How quickly things change. It is not surprising that students are now using these tools more and more, given that their creative software advertise their AI components every time the software loads. Students are now surrounded by AI generated content, even if they reject it as non-art and are extremely critical of it. As teachers of creativity we need to be aware of this quickly changing set of attitudes and design coursework accordingly.
Meeting with students to discuss their thoughts about how they think AI will impact their creativity, and creative industries they are planning to break into, is oftentimes emotional, raw, and visceral. Students are thankful to be able to discuss their thoughts with others. They are worried about becoming over reliant on digital technology in general, not just AI. They are worried about personal expression. They are worried about their humanity. They clearly express a profound lack of faith in government, education, or industry to protect or support human livelihoods, and that it is only a matter of time before robots are the main creative force in industry and education. As an educator and creative, hearing their concerns forced me to think more deeply about what creativity is in the age of AI, as well as how to teach it in a manner that affords humans the most agency in their learning and expression.
The work of Raymond Williams on culture, what is dominant, emergent, and residual, is helpful in my thinking about what creativity is, that contemporary western notions of creativity are firmly grounded in industrial conceptions of production that involve usefulness and novelty, all coupled with social morays supported by western conceptions of democracy. However, and especially when listening to college students speak passionately about ethics and morals around emergent AI, it is hard to imagine current conceptions of democracy being able to contain or govern these autonomous agents in a manner that is equitable for all involved. Students, and the public in general, are quickly losing faith in cultural institutions ability to gain a foothold over AI in terms of protecting intellectual property. Students are convinced that AI, and its ability to mimic human thought and creativity, which they strongly view what AI produces as not original but mimicry, is seen as more valuable to cultural institutions and industry because of use-value, that because a machine can produce it in the fraction of the time that a human or group of humans can, the AI generated content is less messy, more efficient, more novel, more desirable, and more valuable.
I have had the privilege of teaching to a diverse range of students, from very different socio-economic and embodied cognitive backgrounds. In my conversations with them I am constantly reminded of critique by Hubert Dreyfus on early AI experiments and cognition that have been lost in the current critical discourse about AI. Dreyfus posited that intelligence is not possible without a body, essentially arguing for embodied cognitive science. The argument for embodied cognitive science has never been more important to take very seriously, especially as virtual autonomous agents emerge whose decisions have impact on our bodily lived experience. I have heard countless arguments from students of color, women, non-binary, and those from disadvantaged social backgrounds that support Dreyfus and his observations, in that they live examples of their thinking within a body that has been repressed or oppressed by any number or combinations of -isms.
I worry that if AI becomes the dominant form or baseline definition of what intelligence is, as a basis to be creative, then we all will become subjugated by a force that was formed and has come to prominence under conditions created by its own presence and potential for profit. This is a dangerous tautology that we must, at all costs, escape from.
It has become increasingly important to think about strategies of evasion from AI. Despite different governments attempts to legislate or put guardrails around the emergence of AI, it continues to proliferate under its own rules. There are examples where interactors have successfully evaded AI logic. In China, interactors attempting to evade DeepSeeks Great Firewall with 1337 speak have provided some evidence and examples of what is in store for us all in terms of evading or engaging with AI on our own terms, not those terms brought about by AI or its potential for profit. We may need new languages similar to 1337 or Verlan in order to express our creativity freely. Art students already know this. Ask them what their favorite and latest memes are, what they mean, then watch and listen to how protective they are about these emergent semiotic vehicles. At its most radical we may need to teach design to be purposely illegible in order to evade AI evaluation.
The field of AI changes rapidly. This makes tracking discourse, or finding a nexus of critique for AI challenging. It also means that there is a lack of critical discourse on how AI impacts teaching and learning about art related creativity. One aspect of teaching and learning about art that has not been discussed is the practice of teaching mimicry and its relationship to teaching creativity. As a professor of design and creative practice, I understand that art students are taught that mimicry is an important foundational skill to be able to build upon as a creative. The thinking is that, through observation, to be able to reproduce what you find compelling and interesting, demonstrates an important aspect of creativity, to do or make what you see. Now students are competing with AI who mimics or quickly approximates this process at dazzling speed and detail. This changes what it means for humans to teach about mimesis. More critical awareness about mimicry is needed, else we will teach students to mimic the very thing that they will compete against with their creativity.
In thinking more deeply about mimesis, we know that AI cannot actually see anything in order to mimic it. We know that in order to generate output, AI aggregates a best guess based on input, that AI output involves prediction based on input, that AI prediction selects from a set of possibilities to then manifest an output. AI relies on human intervention for observation to correct output. AI does not conduct observation, reflection, response, or reaction. AI requires correction in order to acquire a new set of possibilities. This correction has been categorized as teaching the AI about something. It is debatable whether or not correction is actually teaching. Correcting a student, telling them exactly what and how to do something, is not very creative for all involved. To be surprised by what a student presents as their creativity, to be in dialogue with that process, is an important part of teaching creativity in the presence of AI.
The Montessori teaching model gives us some clues on how to approach teaching art and design given the presence of AI. Teaching design is about convincing students that there is value in a process, even if the process is messy, even when the process fails. It is about testing what they do in the world, to others. Feedback is very important in that process. Feedback is different than correction, where these differences define a creative practice. Feedback allows the one who receives it to reflect, respond, and react. A correction is an edict based on a convention. Correction forecloses abstract thinking. AI can, at this point, only mimic abstract thought as abstraction requires representing combinations of senses a computer cannot process. Yet.
Teaching design in the presence of AI is more about creating conditions where students become more self aware about themselves as they are doing, knowing, reflecting, responding, and reacting. Teaching has become less about encouraging accurate or faithful mimesis and corrections, and more about being aware of oneself and how to reflect, respond, and react given affordances, constraints, and context.
If we do not adjust our thinking about teaching creativity we are in danger of becoming an oppressive bureaucracy to our students, an insurmountable tautology, agents in corrections facilities. Harney and Moten have written poetically and eloquently about evading tautology and oppressive bureaucratic logics and forces, that jazz and improvisation are models for expression for those who are exiled, perpetually on the run, such as how persons of color are in the United States in the face of residual and systemic oppression. While I am not excited about permanent exile for anyone or myself, I am interested in this evasive mode of thought as an alternative to being subjugated by AI or those influenced by AI output. Harney and Moten provide some clues on how to define creativity given AI. They also teach us about reflecting on our conditions, responding to our circumstances, and reacting given constraints or affordances. To reflect, respond, and react are all cognitive skills jazz musicians must utilize during a performance. Jazz musicians utilize their embodied cognitive qualities as they learn and improvise. Does that mean we will all need to be jazz musicians in order to protect our own thought, creativity, and expression from AI? No. But it does mean we need to think more deeply about what it means to mimic and produce thought and creativity, towards a heightened awareness of creativity on our own terms. We need to define this in relation to what a computer can and cannot do. We need to define it in terms of production, liberation, and incarceration.
The emergence of AI means that, especially as art educators, we cannot rely on teaching mimesis and correction as a means for students to demonstrate their potential to be creative and artistic. A computer can do mimesis very well now, humans can correct computers to their hearts content. Just as the electric light replaced or augmented candlelight, the printing press augmented or changed the social function of the pen -- even created a nostalgia for it, educators must rethink what it means to mimic, to produce and reproduce creativity, given AI. When teaching design, it is no longer enough to teach students to make something look good. A computer can do that very well now. Teaching students to produce creativity is about creating an awareness of oneself in the act of making, an awareness that is liberatory, not dependent on correction. This is important because a computer does not have these sets of abilities or awarenesses. Yet.
In terms of production and reproduction of creativity, never has the thought of Marx been more important to embrace, particularly in terms of redefining what it means to produce thought and creativity given AI. No human thought is truly novel, that social and cultural forces, industry, and institutions play huge roles in affording what is known, learned, and expressed. We need to more clearly understand what capitalism makes possible to know and teach, as well as what it prevents. In doing so, we will begin to understand ways to evade AI and be able to teach humans alternatives in its presence. We need to continue to understand what computers cannot do on their own, what humans can do on their own without computers, as well as any combination of humans and computers. We need to take TechnoCulture seriously as the dominant form of culture in our current age.
I think that computers can continue to help us. Of course there are important examples where emergent AI has greatly benefited human kind, such as in vaccine research. However, I am concerned about the impact of AI on human artistic creativity. I am concerned about capitalist driven global politics that are fascist in combination with emergent technotarian philosophy. If we do not define creativity on our own terms, definitions that allow for liberation not correction, then computers will correct us. Just as the advent and proliferation of electricity changed what it means to be human, we are in the midst of yet another profound alteration. We must be aware and not sit back while change reconfigures us.
DnW
3/6/25
Student Creative Work
August Ricciardi | Master(piece)
Jazmine Medina | Faces of No Sabo
What Does It Mean to Decolonize Design? | Eye on Design | AIGA
Genie 3: A new frontier for world models - Google DeepMind
Jim Acosta says he was 'honored' to interview AI Parkland victim amid intense backlash | The Independent
Introducing ChatGPT agent: bridging research and action | OpenAI
Operator | ChatGPT
AI is running rampant on college campuses as professors and students lean on artificial intelligence | Fortune
Study explores the impact of LLMs on human creativity | Tech Xplore
ChatGPT and other AI tools are changing the teaching profession | AP News
AI And Retail Design: The Future Of In-Person Brand Experiences | Forbes
Poll finds public turning to AI bots for news updates - The Economic Times
Disney and Universal sue AI firm Midjourney for copyright infringement : NPR
AI Leap 2025: Estonia sets the standard for AI in education
Student Livid After Catching Her Professor Using ChatGPT, Asks For Her Money Back
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Columbia suspended him after he built a cheating app. Now he's raised $5.3M for it. - Gothamist
Students Are Using AI Already. Here's What They Think Adults Should Know | Harvard Graduate School of Education
Grammarly Survey Unveils Widespread Adoption, Positive Impact, and Areas for Improvement | Learning Technology Solutions | University of Illinois Chicago
Some of her closest relationships are with chatbots. That's more common than you think. | NBC News
'She helps cheer me up': the people forming relationships with AI chatbots | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian
Trump rescinds Biden executive order on AI safety in attempt to diverge from his predecessor | AP News
The LA Times new AI tool sympathized with the KKK. Its owner wasnt aware until hours later | CNN Business
From Rupert Murdoch to Thom Yorke: the growing backlash to AI | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian
AI chatbot pushed teen to kill himself lawsuit alleges | AP News
UAlbany Unveils Powerful New AI Supercomputer | University at Albany
Empire AI | Responsible AI Innovation
FATE: Fairness, Accountability, Transparency & Ethics in AI - Microsoft Research
