Oregon State University students recently took to social media to criticize art generated by artificial intelligence, following claims it was used in a university-affiliated art contest and college posts.

On March 28, the winning designs for the Dam Proud Day t-shirt design contest were announced and later accused of being designed by AI. Since then, a couple of OSU colleges have been accused of using generative AI tools in their social media posts, further fueling the backlash seen on social media platforms like Reddit, TikTok and Instagram.

“It is insulting as someone who designs things,” said Maria Tejeda Solorzano, a third-year graphic design major. “It’s not even close to the thought process, the hours spent right trying to end up with something that looks (and) feels good.”

Dam Proud Day is an annual fundraising event hosted by the OSU Foundation, an independent non-profit group made up of OSU alumni. Judges from the OSU Foundation selected five finalists, which were later voted on by students, with the first-place design receiving the most flak for allegedly using generative AI. 

“Our contest guidelines recommended against the use of AI, but did not explicitly prohibit it,” OSU Foundation spokesperson Molly Brown said in an email. “As a result, we did not disqualify entries based on suspected or alleged AI use.”

Generative AI programs like ChatGPT can create text and other media by pulling from the data it was trained on. For artwork, generative AI pulls from existing art to produce its designs, raising concerns about copyright infringement. 

“I feel like anywhere on the internet now is just a database to be scalped for an AI to spit back out your content whenever someone demands it — or a mimicry of your content,” said Chloe Vilevac, a fourth-year graphic design major. “I don’t like it at all.”

Signs of AI-generated art can include inexplicable asymmetry, warped shapes, misspelled text and illogical designs. Students on the OSU Subreddit pointed to inconsistencies in the Dam Proud Day winning design as evidence of AI, including wavy pine trees, an asymmetrical banner and a mountain incomparable to any Oregon landmark. 

“When you look at the image, it doesn’t actually represent Oregon, because it’s not actually a landscape that we know of in Oregon. It’s a mod-podge of a lot of different landscapes that don’t really make sense,” said OSU alumnus Robin Weis, who graduated in 2022 with a fine arts degree.

Weis argued that the contest guidelines were irresponsible and unclear. 

“I think you need to take a hard stand and say ‘no AI’ outright for this competition, or you need to make it clear when AI is acceptable and how much change you need to make to the design,” Weis said.

Just over a week after the t-shirt contest winners were announced, the College of Liberal Arts posted AI-generated pictures of OSU’s Corvallis campus in a Studio Ghibli art style to its Instagram. Following a flood of critical comments, the post was removed a day later alongside an apology video issued by Keith Van Norman, CLA’s web and digital communications specialist. 

“In my mind, it was about engaging with the trend, which was using obviously AI-generated illustrations in the style of Studio Ghibli movies,” Van Norman said in a later email. 

In a pinned comment beneath the original post, CLA advertised a job opening for a student illustrator. Van Norman said CLA currently has a student employee who does “some graphic design” but isn’t solely employed as an illustrator.

“It is ironic that they were announcing a student illustrator (job), while kind of being disrespectful and spitting in the face of illustrators,” Tejeda Solorzano said. 

Vilevac said she felt frustrated by the pinned comment.

“You can’t just pin a comment under this and be like, ‘Oh, but actually, we’ve suddenly created this job opportunity because people are so angry with us, so this was all an advertisement,’” she said. “Personally, I don’t think that was their intent at all going into it.”

While Vilevac isn’t worried about AI replacing human graphic designers, she does believe that it has hijacked some tasks that used to be done by human artists.

The College of Forestry was also accused of using AI art for an Instagram post advertising a 5k run for Dam Proud Day.

“This is two colleges now that are endorsing AI art when we have the most talented artists. Shameful,” a comment on the post read.

Tejeda Solorzano and Vilevac both expressed feeling like the arts are undervalued at OSU, citing limited resources, decreasing class sizes and a dwindling number of professors. 

“I’m hopeful that people will see that there’s value in the arts and there’s value in complicated and interesting artwork,” Vilevac said. 

Despite opposition from artists like herself, Vilevac believes OSU remains indifferent to AI, partially because she believes there is a financial incentive at play. 

“AI kind of sucks right now, especially as an artist and a writer,” Tejeda Solorzano said. “I hope creative people keep creating (and) that they don’t give up.”