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it’s the start of another school year. as the artificial intelligence (ai) craze sweeps across all walks of life, this year’s college freshmen seem to have more choices.

"our school has added a series of new ai courses and established a dual degree in ai." lu yueyang, a student at the school of management of fudan university, told the "daily economic news" reporter that "almost all majors in his university are + ai."

visual china

the reason why colleges and universities are keeping up with the pace of technology is not only because they want to catch up with new trends, but also because they have foreseen the "sweet impact" that ai technology will have on the field of higher education, and art education is particularly sensitive.

the reporter of daily economic news spent 5 months distributing questionnaires to more than 10 universities in china, including the central academy of fine arts, communication university of china, and sichuan university, and collected 370 valid questionnaires. nearly 60% of the college students interviewed said that they had used the popular ai big model and believed that it was helpful for their professional studies and job hunting. however, some college students also had a panic about ai.

nearly 60% of college students are using ai

enter a scene description, set the relevant values ​​you want to present, and click a button, and a few seconds of animated video will be generated instantly. it is vivid and lifelike, and the skills are no less than those of professional painters. this makes li lin (pseudonym), who has no knowledge of any painting skills but loves animation, excited.

but unlike li lin's excitement, facing the technological innovation brought by chatgpt, when ai emerged in the art field at an astonishing speed, and the animation and game industry cut back on original artists, more students like wang hui (pseudonym), who studied painting for more than ten years before squeezing into the ivory tower art major, began to wonder: "under the overwhelming strength of aigc, is the major we spent more than ten years studying still useful?"

on social platforms, many college students share their experiences and complaints about using large models, and some even start businesses that use ai to cut out and modify images. sun ying, a young teacher at chongqing university of posts and telecommunications, told the daily economic news that according to her understanding, many students have begun to learn various large models privately.

the reporter of daily economic news collected 370 valid questionnaires from college students majoring in art through a five-month questionnaire survey. among them, students majoring in art design, product design, animation and digital media art were the top four majors participating in this questionnaire survey, and 45% of the respondents were sophomores.

nearly 60% of the college students interviewed said they had used the popular ai big models. among them, 26.76% of the college students interviewed used them 1-2 times a week, which were high-frequency users; 31.08% of the college students interviewed used ai big models "less than 5 times a month"; and 5.95% of the college students interviewed "used them almost every day."

the reporter found that the college students who were willing to try using ai big models tended to think that using big models would be helpful for their professional studies and job hunting. in detail, 60% of the college students thought that ai big models would be helpful for their professional studies; and in the question of "whether mastering ai and other technologies would be helpful for job hunting", 61.89% of the college students chose "very helpful".

the use of ai big models is closely related to college students’ attitudes towards new technologies such as aigc. as reflected in the data, 57.3% of the college students surveyed hold an attitude of “very embracing and willing to try” ai big models, while 32.16% of the college students surveyed think that they are “normal and dispensable”. however, 6% of the college students surveyed said that they were “very anxious and worried about being replaced by ai”.

amid the changes, college students are particularly eager to get in touch with and master big ai models in a more professional and systematic way through school.

the data shows that more than 80% of the interviewed college students said that their universities did not offer aigc-related courses; 48.92% of the interviewed college students "very much hope" that universities will offer more aigc-related courses, and only 7.03% of the interviewed college students believe that it is "unnecessary" for universities to offer relevant courses.

many teachers from top domestic universities told reporters that the changes and uncertainties that ai has brought to art education mainly lie in the fact that universities used to teach students popular content and knowledge for the next 3 to 5 years, but under the aigc wave, disruptive changes are taking place in all walks of life, making the "new content" of university education very difficult to predict.

professor: the shelf life of education is shortened

college students' curiosity, yearning for, and fear of ai also concern university teachers.

"the rise of aigc has brought a huge impact to our entire communication university." lu xin, a professor at the school of animation and digital arts of communication university of china, said in an interview with a reporter from the "daily economic news" that the school's majors involve animation, product design, advertising, etc. in the past, these majors had a very high skill threshold. students needed to undergo long-term professional training and learn art, 3d modeling, human-computer interaction development, etc. before they could become practitioners.

"but now, the moat that students have built through 5 to 7 years or even longer 'professional training cycles' is being conquered by big models." lu xin said frankly that when ai first appeared, he and the university scholars around him "would be a little disapproving or even sarcastic, thinking that ai could not be compared with humans. at the current iteration speed, teachers are surprised and controversial, but now everyone has a kind of awe (attitude) towards ai."

according to lu xin's observation, ai has quickly learned the abilities of the best human painters and "violently opened the door to artistic professions. today's students, especially those majoring in fine arts, have shown varying degrees of anxiety after personally experiencing the abilities of ai."

at the end of last year, lu xin asked 46 students in his laboratory to learn the aigc tool in three weeks. as a result, a graduate student who had studied animation for seven years told lu xin that he was desperate and felt that his major was "no match" for ai.

"seeing so many animation and game companies laying off original painting designers, i can't help but worry." wu jia (pseudonym), a junior student at a comprehensive university, told reporters.

ai's emergence in the field of art has exacerbated the fears of some students. "college students are impatient and some don't want to learn basic courses in a solid way," said wu xiao (pseudonym), dean of the school of art at a southwestern university. he told reporters that it is difficult to offer ai courses at present. "with the current iteration speed of large models, i'm afraid the teaching plan will be outdated as soon as it is approved."

sun ying told reporters that chongqing university of posts and telecommunications still insists on continuing to teach basic art courses. "after completing the course, we will combine it with some large artificial intelligence models to help students complete in-depth learning," sun ying said.

in the view of yang yi, vice president of communication university of china, ai has brought a series of uncertainties to universities. "the deeper challenges come from the failure of the existing knowledge system, the imbalance of the traditional discipline structure, the failure of talent training, and the loss of moral control of academic and scientific ethics."

"our college teachers should teach students things that are 5 to 10 years ahead of the market, or at least ensure that students can use them for one or two years after graduation. but now in the face of ai, the shelf life of education has been greatly shortened, and even teachers and students are standing on the same starting line." cao xue, head of the bing dwen dwen design team and professor at the guangzhou academy of fine arts, admitted in an interview with a reporter from the "daily economic news" that the traditional duties and functions of college teachers have been completely subverted by ai. "we are no longer leaders, but promoters of progress together with students."

cao xue, 63, has stepped down as dean of the school of visual arts and design at the guangzhou academy of fine arts, but is still working on the front line of teaching. he is optimistic about ai: "i am far inferior to young teachers, or even students, in the use of technology. but i think the first to be eliminated will be teachers who are closest to the 'attribute' of tools."

"as a creative tool, ai becomes stronger when it encounters strong opponents and weaker when it encounters weak opponents. i don't object to students using ai to design, but the key is how to express better with the help of ai." cao xue told the reporter of "daily economic news" that there are thousands of virtual people on the market now, "they are all handsome and beautiful, but none of them makes me feel alive, because they lack soul and warmth."

ai brings “technological equality”

he yu, professor and doctoral supervisor at the central academy of fine arts, shared with the daily economic news a story from the doctoral recruitment in april this year: someone said during the interview that he hoped to study how ai can be combined with oil painting after being admitted. however, after researching with several supervisors in the same group, he yu felt that the direction the candidate wanted to study was very interesting, but a little radical.

"although large models can be iterated, they cannot generate original artistic creations." he yu once painted huge portraits at important national celebrations. in his opinion, ai has strong tool attributes, but it is unlikely to generate unique or subversive ideas in the short term.

he yu believes that the pictures generated by ai are merely averaged creativity. "we can use ai to assist in completing some pictures, but the core is still people's perception of aesthetics. just like those masterpieces of masters displayed in museums, they constitute a magnificent art history of the entire development of human art. neither monet nor van gogh achieved their own style through algorithms, and their inspiration for painting did not come from data feeding. ai will never be able to use data calculations to complete creations with emotional appeals and warmth."

cao xue pointed out that people who can cut wood neatly are just carpenters who have mastered the technology. only when carpenters integrate their lifestyle into their works through continuous practice and go beyond tools and materials can they become furniture designers. this process of "integration" is difficult for ai to achieve.

facing confused students, lu xin emphasized: "ai cannot replace you. instead, those animation talents who not only master ai but also understand light and shadow, and composition will truly replace you." he pointed out, "in the future, things at the artistic skill level will be replaced by ai, but courses on aesthetics, audio-visual language, etc. will become very important, because what we ultimately compete with big models is the deep things in our minds."

"after 'technological equality', more and more creators will enter the field of art. why not create more interesting content through good ideas and good tools? art will no longer be a matter for a small circle, but everyone can do it. i think this is also an advancement of human civilization." lu xin said.

he yu believes that the impact of ai contains new opportunities. "perhaps in the future, the creativity unexpectedly generated by ai can inspire painters to have unusual inspiration. if the two can be combined well, perhaps a new painting style will be formed."

"as for what ai can replace, we don't actually need to compete with it. what we need is a renewal of concepts and thinking, just like ai couldn't 'calculate' bing dwen dwen." cao xue hopes that the impact of ai on higher education can be more intense, so as to force college students to think and make progress. "not all young people are called the "hou lang". some classics have never been subverted."

sun ying observed that many older teachers have to learn big models on the spot, but this is not easy. "some young teachers have been exposed to big models when they were studying for a doctorate or doing research. this year we have developed a new version of the training program - introducing ai content. we will work together to plan the content of the teaching plan based on our respective strengths, and in the later stage, there may be 'team teachers' to combine teaching."

yang yi revealed that in the face of aigc, communication university of china has issued a statement this spring, "either reach the top or be destroyed. we are advancing the action plan of artificial intelligence in an all-round and in-depth manner."

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