CAMD faculty Nabeel Gillani, Jennifer Gradecki, and Derek Curry recently presented their research on AI and its uses for artists and communities at AI in Action: Building Your Essential AI Toolkit, a bootcamp hosted by the Northeastern University Provost and Chancellor’s Offices to enhance students’ foundational knowledge and practical understanding of AI applications across various disciplines.

Gillani, Gradecki and Curry’s talk AI in Arts, Media and Design: Fostering Connection and Creativity focused on the state of the art in applying AI to communication and creative practice.

Gillani shared visualizations of political discourse on Twitter in 2016, highlighting the existence of echo chambers and filter bubbles, discussing the creation of an AI tool to make users more aware of the effect of these phenomena on their own views. Gillani is an Assistant Professor of Design and Data Analysis and director of Plural Connections Group, which fosters an inclusive response to diversity in society using computation and design in ways that promote educational, economic, and social inclusion.

Turning to the negative impacts of AI on social media, Gradecki presented a project that utilized conditional generative adversarial networks (GANs) to produce images that highlighted the spread of COVID-19 misinformation. project aimed to foreground the peculiarities and glitches of the algorithmic process, distinguishing it from typical deepfake content. An Associate Professor of Art and Design, Gradecki’s research investigates secretive and specialized socio-technical systems.

Curry then discussed the use of generative AI tools for creating text and images, emphasizing their potential in creative fields, but noting the importance of context and the ethical considerations at play with copyright and competition. Implementation and use of AI tools within socio-technical networks can influence whether their outcomes are perceived as positive or negative. Curry is an Associate Professor of Art and Design and creates artworks and games as part of his interdisciplinary practice.

Participants then engaged in a collaborative whiteboard exercise followed by a robust Q&A session on the impact of AI on creative industries. Learners have access to this and the other sessions in the bootcamp on Canvas and will receive a Applying AI Technologies to the Workplace Badge for their participation, providing skills for their future work with AI.