The Use of AI In Arts Education: A Didactic Tool for Sensitising Students and for the Detection of Technology Assisted Writing in the Humanities

Abstract

The disruption caused by the launch of generative AI such as ChatGPT in 2022 has impacted strategies for effective knowledge transfer and assessment across the higher education sector. This essay presents a model or rubric that can be used by educators in the humanities to detect the probable use of AI and to sensitise students to the unoriginality and generic nature of the generated output. The rubric was compiled by coding the artist’s statements of ninety-three art students and graduates from five countries and two continents, participating in the same exhibition. Coding of the data revealed the presence of five defining characteristics that point to the probable use of AI. These are the prevalence and repetition of identified terms as well as phrases; the excessive use of flattering adjectives; hyperbolic statements; and, lastly, tortured phrases. Findings include the widespread reliance on technology in samples from all institutions in the study, across five countries on different continents. Recommendations include a focus on the development of adequate writing skills at school as well as university level combined with centring the importance of ethical conduct in research (and more broadly) as a guiding principle that goes beyond compliance. The source of the data is in the public domain. However, no students or institutions are identified in the presentation, analysis or discussion of the data.