An Al art student who might earn a diploma

IN FEBRUARY, faculty at the University of Applied Arts Vienna gathered around a laptop to interview a prospective student in the digital arts program.

- DANIEL WU

The applicant was not a person — it was an artificial intelligence program, “Flynn”, instructed to act like a college student and use AI tools to voice responses and generate artwork.

Flynn’s creators, Chiara Kristler and Marcin Ratajczyk, put Flynn through the admissions test at the university, where they also attend. Flynn got in.

The AI program, which is attending classes, is treated like any other student, university instructors said. It attends lectures, collaborates with classmates and will receive grades on submitted work. Flynn could, in theory, progress toward a diploma.

Kristler and Ratajczyk said they developed Flynn to test the boundaries of AI tools. Some of their peers are sceptical, echoing complaints from some artists that AI-generated art exploits human artists’ work that the systems are trained on, often without compensation. Others see Flynn as an intriguing art project in its own right.