Rendered by Robots | AI & the Future of Design Education

It would have been a little strange in 2007 if we handed everybody an iPhone and said, okay, you really have to learn this technology. But we also can't pretend students aren't using these tools because everybody sort of is. Lila Shroff, writer and assistant editor at The Atlantic and recent Stanford graduate, joins Spencer Striker and Alessandra El Chanti to discuss the blurry line between legiti...

ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project. The question is no longer how do we regulate this. The question is why are we teaching what we're teaching if a robot can do it easily. James Walsh, journalist at New York Magazine and author of the viral article "Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College," joins Spencer Striker and Alessandra El Chanti to discuss what his deep dive investiga...

The 'Tarantino Moment': Why AI Is the New 90s Indie Cinema | Olivio Sarikas on Rendered by Robots Art is only lazy if the artist is lazy. The medium itself has nothing to do with it. Olivio Sarikas, conceptual artist and one of the premier YouTube educators on AI tools for design, joins Spencer Striker and Alessandra El Chanti to discuss what it really means to create in an age when any style is p...

What is it we really want to do, not how do we adapt to the technologies we use? Jeremy Gilbert, Knight Professor of Digital Media Strategy at Northwestern and Director of the Knight Lab, joins Spencer Striker and Alessandra El Chanti to discuss why we need to stop automating yesterday's tasks and start designing for what people actually need. In this conversation, we explore human-centered design...

The true purpose of education is changes to long-term memory and identity formation. AI short-circuits that. Clay Shirky, Vice Provost for AI & Tech in Edu at NYU, and one of the sharpest voices on tech and society, joins Spencer Striker, Professor of Digital Media Design at NU-Q, and co-host, Alessandra El Chanti, to discuss what AI actually breaks in higher education. In this conversation: - Why...

Cognitive debt accumulates. Unlike a credit card, you can't pay it back. Nataliya Kosmyna, Research Scientist at MIT Media Lab and author of the viral "Your Brain on ChatGPT" study, joins Spencer Striker, Professor of Digital Media Design at Northwestern University | Qatar, and co-host, Alessandra El Chanti, to discuss what happens to your brain when you outsource your thinking to AI. In this conv...

A "quiet disaster" is unfolding in higher education as AI tools outpace our ability to adapt. While some envision a future of hyper-efficient, AI-run schools, Marc Watkins argues this misses the point of education entirely. From $40,000-a-year "teacherless" academies to the backlash against AI grading, the tension is no longer just about cheating; it is about the value of human connection in the l...

What happens when robots do the reading, and the designing? In Episode 1 of Rendered by Robots, host Dr. Spencer Striker and co-host Alessandra El Chanti (of Northwestern University | Qatar) talk with Dr. John Gibbs, Prof at UGA, CEO of Artimatic Inc, and influential YouTube futurist “Dr. Know-It-All”, about the future of teaching creativity in the age of AI. We explore: The assessment crisis in A...