How will cheap, or in many cases, free, AI graphics impact their job opportunities?
Google’s Gemini AI assistant answered that question, saying that artificial intelligence has “flooded the market with low-cost images” that will shift the role of artists from potentially drawing the graphics to creative direction.
That changing landscape is something LSUS instructors Jason Mackowiak, the chair of the Department of Arts and Media, and associate professor Allen Garcie wanted their most recent students to acknowledge.
The two admit that some students have strong feelings and an unwillingness to use AI in any form. The instructors have been trying to frame AI as just another tool, like Photoshop or Canva, which are widely used.
“I don't want it (AI) winning awards over traditional art at Shreveport Regional Arts Council or the Bossier Arts Council locally,” said Mackowiak, but he believes that companies will be using it for graphics, logos and ad campaigns.
“I think the big companies are going to be the ones who are wanting the AI. They want it quick. They want it cheap, even though they have the money. I think our students are going to have to focus more on the local businesses that see the value in it (human-produced works),” Mackowiak said.
At an art showcase for graduating students, Lisa Marshall stood at a table with the items she had designed for St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Shreveport and other original art. Marshall is considered a “non-traditional student,” one who had a career before deciding to come back for more classes.
“Iron sharpens iron, you know, and you get better by placing yourself in the room with people that are better than you. That's how you learn. That's how you get good at what you do," he said. "So that's where I'm hoping to get to.”
Though Marshall knows that AI will be a powerful tool and perhaps even a competitor, she believes that human imagination will triumph.
“Human creativity is always going to produce things that are outside the box that AI isn't going to think to do,” she said.
Marshall believes it will also take a human to find out a business' core needs.
“You need to know your target audience. You need to know how the message needs to be designed. You need to understand typography and how that works to strengthen your message," she said. "And you know, visual hierarchy, there are principles that we learn that make people's messaging, their branding most effective. And AI isn't thinking about that.”
Marshall said based on the input given, AI could create something “cool that would probably work” but you may not be able to replicate that look again.
“If you're looking for consistency in your brand or consistency in your messaging, those random prompts from AI are not necessarily going to generate something that you can use,” she said.
Student Katelyn Davis is a Digital Arts major who has gravitated toward graphic design, packaging, and logos. She said sometimes the hardest part is convincing people that graphic art is already a part of their lives … and business.
At a career fair, she had that conversation at a table with a business hoping to attract nurses.
“All the stuff you have on your table, you're giving out to people. Somebody made that," she said. "You have a department. You have somebody who's making these things for you. And so I did have to fight for my position a little bit and be like,’ hey, I can be useful to you, and I will be useful to you.’”
Davis says she has friends who are “adamantly opposed” to AI.
“I think that's a really bad stance to take, because it is so prevalent you really can't avoid it. And because you can't avoid it, you might as well find a way to use it," she said. “I think the best way to use it is the planning stages of something, something to help you build up your idea. Something to help you plan out what you're going to do, rather than have it, you know, take your idea and fully make it, fully create it. Because obviously, at that point, it's not going to be your idea, it’s going to be a robot's idea.”
Davis will not, however, go so far as to call AI a project ‘collaborator.' “I would veer against collaborator, just more like a little prompt.”
Garcie tries to help students walk through the threat of AI with classes on creative problem solving and design thinking. “How do you problem solve away AI, or do you solve it away? Or do you just learn how to work with it?” asked Garcie.
Even though he realizes that some of his students refuse to use AI, he tells them, “Regardless of whether or not you embrace it, it's something that is here. So either you learn about it, you learn to work with it somehow, or the people who do learn are going to take those jobs.”
“When it comes down to it, we have to adapt, you know? I mean, that's the only way, because there is no overcoming it.”
Marshall believes potential clients who might be tempted to use AI will also come to a realization.
“Even if AI comes up with, ‘oh, that's stunning,’ and you can have the most eloquent prose. But if it's not reaching your target audience, and it's not giving them what they need, then it's all for naught," she said. "It doesn't matter how cool it looks if it's not being effective, you're wasting your time and you're wasting your money.”
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