Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Fine Arts will lead a two-year study on how artificial intelligence can be integrated in arts education.

“Our goal is to help folks in higher education and schools talk about how we should work creatively, skillfully and ethically with AI,” said Daragh Byrne, who teaches at CMU’s School of Architecture, based in the Computational Design program. “Every campus was navigating it on their own. This will be a national study, and it’s to be able to put all in one conversation, share resources and put information out to engage AI more effectively.”

The study is funded by a roughly $300,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, with a dollar-for-dollar match from Carnegie Mellon, he said.

Researchers will complete a fieldscan of how arts education and creative industries are responding to generative AI across K-12 and higher education, Byrne said. The study will also describe how higher education is responding to AI in arts and creative practice.

“It will build a coherent picture of how we’re responding to it,” said Byrne, who leads the Working Group on Artificial Intelligence in CMU’s College of Fine Arts.

The research, Byrne said, is critical: The arts and culture sector is a $1.2 trillion industry in the United States, reports the National Endowment for the Arts, and AI may shape that.

Artists have adapted to the times before — Byrne cited photography as an example — but AI comes with different challenges based on its rapid pace of advancement. Concerns with AI range from intellectual property to the effect the technology could have on jobs.

“There is a clear resistance to AI because of these concerns, and that gets in the way of engaging AI within education,” he said.

The study will turn out a public guide for how higher education can train future artists and designers to use AI creatively, critically and ethically while preserving human skills.

Project partners include Creative Generation in South Portland, Maine; Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities in Ann Arbor, Mich.; and Penn State’s Art and Design Research Incubator.

“We’re trying to build ways with the NEA support to give educators, policy makers and families real evidence so they can make decisions about creatives’ futures, without guessing,” Byrne said.