Griffin Smith

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.