Griffin Smith is a digital artist using generative AI and language bots. He designed the first AI studio courses at both RISD and Brown University and has collaborated with researchers, authors and artists to build custom neural networks, AI language models and VR installations.
His extended series Zero Shot (2018–19) trained an early GPT precursor on poetry, simulating authors’ voices to ask how an art style manifests as patterns in data. This question now hangs over every art institution in the world. Smith’s classes place contemporary tools in an art-historical context, detailing how computation has shaped the past 100 years of art.
His teaching research explores how AI can aid ESL students in writing and custom translations, as well as support early education for neurodiverse students. Artists will not be replaced by machines, but the next decade of creative augmentation, copyright law and a shifting art market will deeply impact every RISD student, regardless of discipline. Smith’s classes allow students to confront these topics with hope and focus rather than fear.
Courses
Fall 2024 Courses
HPSS S139-01 - DIGITAL CULTURE: HOW COMPUTERS TOOK OVER THE WORLD
LevelUndergraduate
UnitHistory, Philosophy, and the Social Sciences
Subject History, Philosophy and the Social Sciences
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
FormatLecture
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
HPSS S139-01
DIGITAL CULTURE: HOW COMPUTERS TOOK OVER THE WORLD
LevelUndergraduate
UnitHistory, Philosophy, and the Social Sciences
Subject History, Philosophy and the Social Sciences
PeriodFall 2024
Credits3
FormatLecture
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2024-09-04 to 2024-12-11
Times: F | 1:10 PM - 4:10 PMInstructor(s): Griffin SmithLocation(s): College Building, Room 442Enrolled / Capacity: 25Status: Closed
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course provides a framework for understanding how and why digital technology came to define the modern world. We will first explore the history of “reasoning” machines from ancient automata to analogue computers, before turning to modern digital media. Readings will contextualize the past 100 years of digital history, introducing students to the cultural legacy of the personal computer, the internet, and AI. We’ll ask: how are computers unlike other technologies? How does digital media shape our perceptions? And how much of culture can we capture in data? Students will produce weekly reading responses, give oral presentations, and complete a final research project.
"Art is either plagiarism or revolution" - Paul Gauguin. This studio course explores how AI’s rapid progress is challenging artists today. As we work with these exciting, terrifying new tools, we’ll discuss how artists have responded to transformative media of the past like the camera, the television, and the internet. How can we comment on the ethical concerns of AI technology? Should we change how we think about creativity? And who will the machines replace?
Students will experiment with new tools as they are released throughout the semester, as well as interview machine learning researchers and digital artists. Authors include: Walter Benjamin, Ray Kurzweil, Harold Cohen, N. Katherine Hayles, and Ted Chiang. No coding experience is required.
