Standpoint: Te Herenga Waka researcher and creative AI expert weighs in on the impact of artificial intelligence on design and education

Standpoint video series highlights the breadth and depth of the research that goes on at Te Herenga Waka. This week Media Design Programme Lead Tom White takes a stand on the impact of AI and machine learning on design, education, and bias.

20 March 2024

Tell us about yourself

“Hi, my name is Tom White. I am a senior lecturer at Te Kura Hoahoa—School of Design Innovation in the Media Design major, and my area of teaching and research is Creative Artificial Intelligence.”

Where do you stand on this statement: AI creates better design than humans?

“I'm going to disagree with that.

"Mainly in how it's phrased, because I don't think AI creates better designs on its own. But I will agree with that I think that it creates better designs in general with humans.”

Where do you stand on this statement: AI exacerbates bias?

“I am sadly going to have to agree with that one because on its own, AI can exacerbate bias.

“My research group has looked into the fact that AI is trained on examples, and those examples can be biased in the training set and what it learns. The problem is, is that the systems can actually exacerbate bias, meaning that the decisions it makes in the future are even more skewed than the training set.

“The good news is that with investigation, you can correct for this. So it's not necessarily the case if they're designed correctly.”

Where do you stand on this statement: Schools and education sector are prepared for using AI?

“I think by and large, I disagree that they probably are not, though some of them are. The AI is moving so quickly and the technology is evolving so rapidly that it's hard to be fully prepared. That said, there are schools and there are departments that are embracing it and trying to adapt quickly as this is part of the future for our students.”

Where do you stand on this statement: In the future, everyone will need to use or work with AI in their workplace?

“I'm going to disagree, because I don't think there's hardly any technology, I can think of, that everyone needs to use in their workplace.

“But I'm gonna agree with a slight rephrasing, which is I think everyone should be literate in AI and machine learning and how it works. Just as we teach literacy in the Design School, we teach visual literacy, we teach math literacy because everyone needs basic math skills.

"I think more and more we're going to be teaching machine learning literacy because having knowledge of how these systems work is going to be important because they'll be impacting our lives more and more.”