Artful Design + Artificial Intelligence: What Do We (Really) Want from AI?

This event explored the fascinating STEAM intersection of music, coding, art, and artificial intelligence.   

 

We all design, shaping the world around us in the form of tools, policies, education, and communities. In recent months we’ve seen the growing emergence of “astoundingly competent” AI tools, leading many of us to wonder how AI might soon impact our work, our lives, our world. How do we (want to) live and work with artificial intelligence? How might we artfully design tools and systems that balance machine automation and human interaction? And perhaps the most basic question of all, what do we (really) want from AI?  

 

In this presentation, we engaged with these questions through an artful design lens, considering factors such as aesthetics, ethics, and accountability. As a case study, we drew from the teaching of "Music and AI", a critical-making course at Stanford, and explore the power of human creativity in using AI not as an "oracle", but as a tool for creative expression.  

 

Ge Wang is an Associate Professor at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). He researches the artful design of tools, toys, games, musical instruments, programming languages, expressive VR experiences, and interactive AI systems with humans in the loop. Ge is the architect of the ChucK audio programming language, the director of the Stanford Laptop Orchestra and the Stanford VR Design Lab. He is the Co-founder of Smule and the designer of the Ocarina and Magic Piano apps for mobile phones. A 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, Ge is the author of Artful Design: Technology in Search of the Sublime, a photo comic book about how we shape technology -- and how technology shapes us.

At Stanford University, Ge teaches "critical-making" courses at the intersections of art, the humanities, and engineering, including "Music, Computing, Design", "Laptop Orchestra", and "Music and AI".  

 

The first 50 guests received a free copy of Ge Wang's book Artful Design: Technology in Search of the Sublime.  

 

 

This event was hosted by Initiative for Education Policy and Innovation, Centre for the Study of Global Japan at the University of Toronto, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, sponsored by University of Toronto Schools.