I am a third-year 2D Animation Major here at the School of Film & Animation, and I am overall disgusted with the direction RIT is headed in. Whenever the topic of generative AI is brought up, it's always framed as a "debate". A "point of contention", a "tool". This has always bothered me. It's especially frustrated me when some professors actively encourage the use of AI, whether that's by allowing students to use it for classwork or by offering incentives for students who use AI, such as one of my past professors offering an extra 5 points on your grade for the semester if you used an AI model such as ChatGPT when writing your essays. This is absurd to me. Whatever happened to academic integrity? Plagiarism isn't allowed, but using a database that does nothing but steal others' work to help write your work is? And you'll be rewarded for doing so? This is ridiculous.

This is not an issue with just one professor, or one class. It is a political and socioeconomic issue that we need to address for this campus now.

The tipping point for me was last Thursday (10/23) when a guest speaker was brought in from an "AI film studio" over Zoom to speak to animation students. As a notetaker for this guest lecture, I had to pay close attention to everything that was being said. The studio this speaker works for is supposedly "pro-artist" and uses the first "clean" and "ethical" AI model- What "ethical" means in this case is that the model was not trained by stealing work from artists, and that everything they used in its creation was either licensed or created by artists which they hired. Right off the bat: This does not mean that it's "ethical", it means it's legal. I and many other students pointed this out in the Zoom chat, but were never acknowledged. When asked by a student how exactly this production pipeline was "pro-artist", the speaker said that it was faster, cheaper, and required fewer artists to work on a project. Again, I and other students asked how that is good for the artists, but were never answered. When asked about the environmental impact of generative AI (another big part of the ethical concern), the speaker said there was just "not enough data" to tell what the environmental impact was, and implied that traditional animation pipelines might be WORSE for the environment than an AI that can make a film in 6 months. This guest speaker went on to say that a lot of young people are pushing back against AI but that everyone needs to be pushing for ethical AI, and stating that independent animation “will not be able to exist” without generative AI (ignoring the fact that some of the most successful animated media currently is made by independent creators on a shoestring budget without the use of AI, including last year's Best Animated Picture winner).

It feels incredibly obvious that the reason certain questions were ignored was that they very easily destroyed any semblance of an argument for generative AI. Why would you want "ethical" AI in the first place? The truth is that such a thing does not exist. You are not trying to be pro-artist, or use it as a tool. No matter how you try to frame it, advancements in this technology will ultimately only be used to take artists’ place, and that will never be ethical. AI is full of contradictions. This guest speaker said that AI was here to stay, but towards the end of the presentation, admitted that she did not know if her company would still exist in 3 months. The entire economy is currently betting on the idea of generative AI, and it feels increasingly clear that it is a bubble that is going to pop. I am upset that THIS was the guest speaker chosen to come and speak to animation students, to try to convince us that we should all be in love with this technology and pushing for it. RIT exists at the intersection of art and technology, but all too often it feels as though its artists are pushed aside in favor of what is most profitable, from President Sanders stating that this campus will be a place for breakthroughs in artificial intelligence to RIT's social media posting AI generated images as promotion. This tech may seem harmless to some, but the applications for this technology are dangerous, from spreading misinformation to pumping out as much content as possible, as fast as possible, without any need for human creativity or quality control. That terrifies me.

I am tired of dancing around this issue and acting like it's a "difference of opinion" or an "inevitability". Quite frankly, giving in and saying it's "just inevitable" and we have to get used to it feels more like a self-fulfilling prophecy. What am I, and countless other students, going into a hundred thousand dollars in debt to come here for? I love art. I love writing. I do not want to see either of these things tossed aside in favor of "productivity". I do not want these mediums I care so deeply about constantly undermined by a service that no real artist wants to use. Machine learning models are powerful, and there are applications for them to be used as tools. Studios like Pixar and Sony have done so for years, and they are nothing new. But this specific breed, this generative AI which threatens the job security of so many people across so many industries, has no place in animation or on this campus. I don't think this petition is going to do much of anything, but I am tired of staying silent about this. RIT ultimately is an institution to make money. But if it has any integrity at all, i would hope that you would please reconsider your policies around it and stop insisting that this is the way of the future.

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It's not a "debate"- Change Your policies about generative aI.

Remove Dangerous Flock-like Automated License Plate Readers on campus