Coexistence and creativity: screen media education in the age of artificial intelligence content generators

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article discusses the implications of Artificial Intelligence Content Generators (Gen-AI) for the field of screen media education. In light of the 2022–2023 releases of ChatGPT, DALL·E 2 and Midjourney AI, the article addresses the idea of what value there is for a student to enrol in a creative arts degree given the public view that Gen-AI threaten to replace human jobs in artistic fields. The article argues that there is potential for Gen-AI to offer major benefits to existing approaches to media education and that the technology could in fact drive greater interest in studying the creative arts. The act of creativity is valued by those who practise it for intrinsic purposes, and many graduates of screen programmes have traditionally leveraged their passion and creative conceptual understandings in a wide variety of employment fields outside vocationally-oriented screen production roles. Therefore, the article demonstrates that Gen-AI can benefit screen media programmes by improving employment opportunities for graduates, enhancing access and diversity for under-represented students, and can address the classic challenges of the theory-practice nexus for media production students.