Sommer School of KITeGG Rese­arch Project at HfG

More than ten inter­na­tional and dome­stic guest spea­kers and panel parti­ci­pants, about 100 atten­dees, and in times of AI-appli­ca­tions such as ChatGPT a highly topical and much disputed topic: What are the oppor­tu­ni­ties and risks of the usage of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) in design and the arts? In mid-May 2023, Univer­sity of Applied Sciences Schwä­bisch Gmünd (HfG) hosted the inter­na­tional confe­rence ​“reshape – How do Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence and Machine Lear­ning reshape the land­scape of art and design?” The event was held in the context of the German KITeGG rese­arch project. 

The KITeGG-project ((KI greifbar machen und begreifen – Tech­no­logie und Gesell­schaft verbinden durch Gestal­tung, in English: ​“Making AI under­stan­dable and tangible – Connec­ting tech­no­logy and society through design”) is a joint project of Univer­sity of Applied Sciences Schwä­bisch Gmünd with Univer­sity of Applied Sciences Mainz, Trier Univer­sity of Applied Sciences, Offen­bach Academy of Art and Design, and KISD – Köln Inter­na­tional School of Design of TH Köln. Until December 2025, it is funded for four years by the Federal Ministry of Educa­tion and Rese­arch (BMBF) through the funding initia­tive ​“Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence in Higher Education”. 

In seven talks and two open panel discus­sions with rese­ar­chers, experts, and design students, ​“reshape – How do Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence and Machine Lear­ning reshape the land­scape of art and design” addressed current and future appli­ca­tions of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) in the disci­pline of design. For example, the respec­tive talks dealt with the issues of ​“UX of AI“ (Nadia Piet), ​“AI Safety & Disclo­sure in Product Design: Prac­tices in Flux” (Emily Saltz), ​“Machine Abstrac­tions” (Tom White) or ​“Future Ever­yday Products” (Matteo Loglio and Simone Rebaudengo). 

Critical AI debate natio­nally and internationally 

The confe­rence panels, some of them with lively discus­sions, focused on the oppor­tu­ni­ties of AI, but also addressed the risks of its use – just a few days before inter­na­tional and national AI experts, inclu­ding Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI), Demis Hass­abis (head of Google Deep­Mind), Kevin Scott (head of tech­no­logy at Micro­soft), warned against the use of AI in the media on the site of the Center for AI Safety, San Fran­cisco – it is fair to mention that this step, too, was not without contro­versy and met with fierce criti­cism among experts. 

Accor­dingly, the ques­tions posed by panelists for debate at the reshape confe­rence struck a chord with the dome­stic and inter­na­tional critical-opti­mi­stic debate regar­ding AI: ​“How will we gene­rate know­ledge in the future if AI tech­no­logy is always at our side?“, ​“If AI and human users merge more and more, how do we learn and know to think and act not only in a purely machine-opti­mized way, but still in an ethi­cally respon­sible way?“, ​“And what kind of poli­tical-economic system do we need for that purpose? One that regu­lates the use of AI? Or one that favors laissez-faire libe­ra­lism and expands the use of AI?!“

Diffe­ren­tiated view on inter­ac­tion with AI technologies 

“In cura­ting the confe­rence, it was important for me to take a step back from the current ​„hype“ around gene­ra­tive AI and look with a diffe­ren­tiated view on the diffe­rent ways desi­gners interact with AI tech­no­lo­gies. We also wanted to inte­grate a critical view of AI tech­no­logy into the event – such as the rein­force­ment of social inequa­li­ties, the condi­tions of produc­tion and ecolo­gical impacts of ever larger scaling systems of auto­matic pattern reco­gni­tion. As the AI+D team at HfG, we are very pleased with the successful outcome of the reshape confe­rence. The atmo­sphere was consis­t­ently posi­tive, lively, and open – and our guests and spea­kers from Germany and abroad made a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to this,“ says Alexa Stein­brück, curator of the conference.

KITeGG Sommer School ​“reshape – Forum for Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence in Art and Design“ 
10. Mai – 12. Mai 2023

Hoch­schule für Gestal­tung Schwä­bisch Gmünd (HfG)

Speaker*innen

Cathe­rine Breslin (Conver­sa­tional AI)
Prof. Wolf­gang Ertel (RWU Ravens­burg-Wein­garten)
Ploi­palin Flynn (antiracistby.design)
Roman Stefan Grasy (Intuity Lab, Stutt­gart)
Matteo Loglio & Simone Rebau­dengo (oio)
Simon Maris (AI x Design x Sustaina­bi­lity)
Nadia Piet (AIxDe­sign)
Andreas Refs­gaard (artist)
Norbert Riedels­heimer (IBM Client Engi­nee­ring)
Emily Saltz (UX Google Jigsaw)
Team Prompt Battle (HTW Dresden)
Tom White (artist and researcher) 

AI+D Team der HfG 

Hartmut Bohn­acker, project lead
Rahel Flechtner, visi­ting professor
Bene­dikt Groß, project lead
Chris­to­pher Pietsch, rese­ar­cher
Johannes Roth­kegel, student assistant
Felix Sewing, AI+D lab
Aeneas Stan­kowski, visi­ting professor
Alexa Stein­brück, researcher