Exploring the Intersection of ART, AI, and EDUCATION: Boise State University’s Jen Schneider Leads the Way

BY HEATHER HAMILTON-POST INTERVIEW BY KAREN DAY

The desire to create is perhaps the greatest impulse of humanity. Together and as individuals, we offer up our art in a variety of mediums as a way to express ourselves as a way to tell the world that we exist. We bare it all through paintings and collage, sculpture, essay, photography, song, or social media.

“But what does it mean to create in this new economy?” asks Jen Schneider, Associate Dean of the College of Innovation and Design at Boise State University. “Who are the creators?”

These questions, and a host of others, are on Schneider’s mind as she navigates a world suddenly buzzing with discussion around artificial intelligence and what place it might have in educational spaces like BSU. And while it may feel new, Schneider notes that already, AI is being used in digital environments to streamline user experience in subtle ways that many people may not even recognize.

“We are in our infancy with regard to AI. We’re in an AI race right now among these big players, and a lot of them are not sharing that information. It’s also really complicated technologically,” Schneider said.

But the tools are easy to learn, which is one reason it has taken off so quickly. “So many people don’t think they’re artists or designers, but you can produce amazing images and use those in a variety of ways that people would find really exciting,” she said.

Like any tool, there are problems too. “There are really serious biases in generative AI products because they feed off the internet, which is full of racism and sexism and bias,” she said. “All the more reason to make sure we have diverse experts working on these problems.” Scheider anticipates that, because AI is so applied, it will offer an appealing entrypoint for women and people of color into computer science, a field still dominated by white men.

Her college is focused on trying to prepare for the future, so when ChatGPT and others hit the scene, leaders turned to them for help navigating uncertain waters. Schneider, who has worked in nuclear power, nanotechnology, and climate change policy, has experience guiding people through substantial technological changes, although she says that AI is moving at an unprecedented rate.

Schneider isn’t worried about the technology piece for digital natives, essentially born with phones in their hands. “For students, the knowledge is there, but do they have the skills to prompt it well? To evaluate whether something is a good piece of information? To determine if ChatGPT is writing well or if an image is appropriate? They’re going to need more education to be skilled, effective users,” she said.

Luckily, Schneider says the college is well positioned to help students interact with technologies in meaningful ways that preserve their humanity. “AI can help with some of the lift, including the bureaucracy and the reporting, which frees us up to do the things we want to do,” she said. The college will offer training for faculty and curriculum for students to familiarize them with the technology and address some of the complicated ethical, social, and political questions surrounding a world so influenced by AI.

“We have a lot of good examples from the past of disruptive technologies that we think students can learn from. We just need to guide the ship, and bring the expertise to bear on what this new world of generative AI means,” said Schneider.