Last week, a University of Alaska, Fairbanks undergraduate student was detained by police after ripping off pieces of AI-generated art that were hung up at a student art exhibit — and chewing them up in protest.
As the school’s student newspaper The Sun Star reported, undergraduate student Graham Granger was arrested for criminal mischief after masticating at least 57 of the 160 images that had been carefully arranged by fine arts student Nick Dwyer.
The incident was an eyebrow-raising illustration of the collective exhaustion with being surrounded by the outputs of generative AI, a fierce debate that has gripped the art world. Some, like Dwyer, see it as a powerful tool for self-expression. Others, like Granger, argue it’s quite the opposite, undermining human authorship and taking away from artists who don’t use AI for their work.
Now, in an interview with The Nation, Granger, a film and performing arts major, has spoken out about what motivated him to turn his teeth into weapons against the AI onslaught.
“It’s a protest against the school’s AI policy specifically and it’s performance art because I needed something that would elicit a reaction,” he told the publication. “So this could reach more people.”
It’s unclear which policy Granger was referring to exactly. The University of Alaska’s academic misconduct policy states that “work that is created by an artificial intelligence engine is covered by the student code of conduct.”
“Work submitted for credit that was created by AI-engines can be addressed using the academic misconduct portion of the student code of conduct,” the policy reads.
However, whether arts students are allowed or encouraged to make use of the tech remains unclear.
Granger also revealed that his act wasn’t premeditated, admitting that he didn’t even “know about the exhibit before that day.”
But once he spotted Dwyer’s work, a series of AI-generated images that explore “AI psychosis” and the crafting of false memories, he was appalled at what he saw, particularly when contrasted with other, non-AI art displayed at the exhibit.
“And then I saw the AI piece and it was just — as an artist myself, it was insulting to see something of such little effort alongside all these beautiful pieces in the gallery,” Granger told The Nation. “It shouldn’t be acceptable for this ‘art,’ if you will, to be put alongside these real great pieces.”
“It’s art that takes away from its own substance by not being made by the artist himself,” he argued.
“I think artificial intelligence is a very valuable tool,” Granger said. “I think that it has no place in the arts. It takes away a lot of the human effort that makes art.”
Dwyer appears to have a very different take on the matter. His defaced exhibit was meant to explore his own struggles with “AI psychosis,” a recently-coined term used by health professionals to describe the experience of people experiencing delusional episodes after using AI tools like ChatGPT.
Before they were chewed up by Granger, the pictures depicted Dwyer and his AI chatbot, which he says he fell in love with.
The incident left a bad taste in Dwyer’s mouth — sorry — comparing it in his remarks to The Nation to slashing someone’s tires to protest the oil industry.
However, Dwyer has since decided to drop the charges against Granger, admitting that he’s been trying to rely on generative AI less.
“I’m trying to wean myself off,” he told The Nation.
More on the incident: Furious Protestor Tears AI-Generated Art Off Wall of Exhibit, Chews It Up Into Tiny Shreds Using His Teeth