Technology & Ethics

AI—is it EVER okay to use?

[4 minute read]

Before reading this, please see PART ONE that shows we are adamantly against AI in writing curriculum. 

Now we continue the conversation…

So, what about graphics?  Do we take a harsh stance against that, as well?  

Honestly, it depends. 

As we said, we aren’t personally against technology.  We use AI to help with the graphics on things like our own home page.  But even then, we don’t believe it should be arbitrary. We do not personally feel that anyone should spit in a prompt and accept whatever it throws back.

Here is an example below of how we personally use it (with actual images to compare/contrast).  This is the best way, in our opinion, to use a tool like AI:

First, we create an image with the wording from our own minds on our computer. We compile it like a collage on our program, with text blocks, a mix of images, and a scrapbook layout.  Then, we toss our “collage” into AI to have it smooth out and provide a better overall graphic.

You can see our own image first with the pieces we created:

Our own image, pre-AI enhancement:

Our original collage mockup

The following is with help from what AI returned.  You can see how it softened the lines, fixed the background image problems, blended the unit image transitions, etc. We think such usage is completely okay.

With AI adjustments:

AI smoothed version

Of note, we still didn’t blindly accept what it gave us and call it a day.  It’s important for people to realize that what it “spits out” isn’t always going to align with reality.  Even with this example, we still had to take it back to the drawing board and fix it because AI is notoriously bad at following directions and messing things up.  After we edited it again, we got it where we wanted it.  It was a tool to help us accomplish what we need for the main page of our website.  We see this as an acceptable use of AI, but even still, you have to be careful with it.

Funny enough, our first venture into AI graphics was actually on accident! We pay for our graphics from different sources and creators, and way back in the day before we were even too familiar with AI, we paid for dinosaur graphics for our Paleontologist unit. Turns out, the dinosaurs were AI created, and we didn’t even know it! We have learned our lesson from that.  For now, we actually use the graphics in that unit to prove the point we teach in our lessons (those who have the unit know how it uniquely correlates into questioning everything ).  From now on, if we ever use graphics, we are aware of the AI-infiltration and application, and we try to ensure it is accurate–just as anything else we do.

We hope that helps!

We still have more coming on the increasing dangers of AI use in writing educational content (which we are against), so stay tuned!

If you want to see part 1 of that argument, go HERE!

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