Tisch signs deal expanding generative AI tools for students
For the past semester, some film and media students at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts have used advanced artificial intelligence tools to create and edit images after the school signed an agreement with a generative AI company, as announced earlier this month.
Students in Tisch’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, an arts and technology-based graduate program, and Interactive Media Arts, an undergraduate coding and computing program, gained access to Runway’s tools in January. The company, founded by two Tisch alumni, uses AI programs to edit and generate videos, images and audio — with prompts ranging from creating storyboards to crafting human depictions.
In a statement to WSN, Tisch Dean Rubén Polendo said that the agreement gives students an opportunity to work with technologies “that are shaping the future of art.”
“Runway AI takes an artist-first approach to reimagining the relationship between technology and image-making, giving our students first-hand access to this rapidly innovating space,” Polendo said. “Together we are committed to the safe and ethical use of AI, with an emphasis on combating biases and featuring extensive content safeguards.”
The collaboration also includes tools for the Hypercinema Lab — which experiments with generative, synthetic and interactive media and serves as an extension of the IMA and ITP programs. Researchers at the lab, housed at the Kanbar Institute of Film & Television, will study how access to new technology shifts storytelling processes.
Gabriel Barcia-Colombo, the lab’s co-director, told WSN that with the program, Tisch aims to employ AI tools for multimedia projects while acknowledging that it could raise ethical concerns for artists.
“As an artist, I’m just as worried as everybody else about authorship and ownership and the ethical implications of AI,” Barcia-Colombo said. “But if we just pretend it doesn’t exist, that’s not going to do a good service to anybody at all. Approaching it for the critical eye is important.”
Cristóbal Valenzuela, Anastasis Germanidis and Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz founded Runway as NYU students in the ITP program in 2018. At the Tisch Gala earlier this month, Valenzuela was honored for his work at the company.
Luna Chen — a Runway student ambassador and second-year graduate student in the ITP program — said that while she does not get paid for the position, the company compensates her with 10,000 credits, which can be used to purchase various of the company’s internal AI models. In her role, Chen said she can leverage the company’s title while pursuing personal projects and organizing events — for instance, she hosted a panel discussion about the ethical use of AI last semester. At the talk, a Runway team member had said the company aims to bolster artists’ creativity, not replace their work with generative content.
“I appreciate the collaboration they offered me, but I’m not mindlessly promoting them,” Chen said. “I know what to do that is good for both their company and students in Tisch, and also my personal practice. I’ll keep this collaboration in a controlled form.”
Last year, students in a Tisch filmmaking course titled “Special Topics in Virtual Production” were granted access to Runway tools while working on their personal projects and final theses. received access to Runway tools for their personal work and final theses.
Tisch student Anooya Swamy told WSN that while her program does not collaborate with Runway, her professors do not seem “resistant” to AI while “informally” indicating that the technology is growing more prevalent.
“We are looking at fundamentally changing what education looks like,” Swamy said. “The same criteria for what constitutes good work will be re-examined — and I think that is a good thing, but we must move quickly and with intention as to how we want the next generation to look. No one is asking whether the curriculum itself needs to be rebuilt.”
Brishti Sarkar and Justin Yen contributed reporting.
Contact Daniel Chumpitaz at [email protected].
