Opportunities and Challenges: Transformations in Media Arts Education Under AIGC

Released at the end of 2022, the large language model ChatGPT quickly gained popularity, marking the arrival of the era of general artificial intelligence. Represented by ChatGPT, large language models have sparked a wave of artificial intelligence generated content (AIGC). The emergence of Sora in early 2024 further signifies a major breakthrough in AI in the field of video generation. As a foundational technology, AIGC has permeated production methods, industrial structures, social forms, and ideological systems. The rapid iteration of models that generate text, images, and videos has brought tremendous impact to the media arts industry, including film and television production, digital media, advertising, and marketing. In response to this impact, how media arts education in universities can swiftly and effectively adjust its teaching strategies and direction has become an urgent issue to address.

Generative artificial intelligence is reshaping the ecological pattern of the media arts industry with its unique advantages. In the era of mobile internet, digital content pursues novelty, speed, and differentiation. AIGC, with its ability to efficiently generate diverse and personalized content, has become a “new productive force” leading innovation in content production in the media field.

1. Innovating Traditional Workflows to Reduce Costs and Improve Quality and Efficiency. The transformation of production tools driven by technology has enabled the media industry to achieve the triple goals of reducing costs, improving efficiency, and enhancing quality in content production, reshaping existing workflows. For example, China Central Television (CCTV), as a leader in domestic news websites, established an AI editing department as early as 2019 and achieved full-process automation from news collection, editing, publishing, reviewing to dissemination based on AI technology. From the conception and generation of copy to the shooting and production of images and videos, to the final large-scale production and dissemination, the application of AIGC in the media arts field is not merely acting as a “plug-in” to reduce costs and improve efficiency in a certain link; rather, it breaks the shackles of efficiency, changes the original linear workflow, allowing practitioners to break free from heavy data processing and repetitive production, and focus more on innovative and in-depth content creation, thereby enhancing creative quality and efficiency and improving the utilization of enterprise funds. According to the “2024 AI Index Report” released by Stanford University, 42% of surveyed companies reported reduced operating costs with AI assistance, and 59% reported increased revenue, with the proportion of companies reporting cost reductions increasing by 10% compared to the average level of 2022.

2. Multi-dimensional Expansion of Professional Abilities, Cultivating High-level Composite Talents. Driven by AIGC, the threshold for professional skills is gradually lowering, providing practitioners with more opportunities to expand their professional dimensions. With convenient AI tools, practitioners can more easily venture into and explore specific fields they were previously not good at, helping them better meet the job demands of the digital age. For example, for editors with limited mastery of skills such as video editing and special effects production, AI can help them gradually become proficient in these skills, achieving diversified self-directed creation. At the same time, the technology-driven transformation is also prompting changes in the media arts industry’s demand for talent; merely mastering a single media professional knowledge is no longer sufficient to meet the industry’s development needs, leading to the emergence of a demand for composite talents. Composite talents not only need to be proficient in core theories and practical skills in the media arts field, such as news editing, film production, and advertising planning, but also need to possess interdisciplinary and cross-domain comprehensive abilities, such as mastering model training and big data analysis skills. More comprehensive professional requirements provide a strong impetus for optimizing and upgrading the internal talent structure of the industry.

3. Stimulating New Industrial Vitality, Giving Rise to Diverse Employment Positions. The popularization of AIGC has stimulated emerging industries related to media, such as intelligent content creation, digital marketing, and content management, creating new opportunities and positions for talents with relevant skills. Taking the brand marketing team of Hema Fresh as an example, they use low-rank adaptation (LoRA) model optimization to train models for various commonly used advertising materials like Hema IP, Hema family, and Hema super symbols, greatly reducing the tedious work of repeated modeling and rendering caused by differences in the shape, clothing, and actions of creative materials like IP images. At the same time, they independently develop AI products and tools, lowering the usage threshold for staff and reducing personnel costs. According to the “2024 AIGC Application Layer Top Ten Trends White Paper” released by DingTalk in collaboration with the internationally renowned consulting firm IDC, 60% of companies are currently using open versions of large models, and this proportion is expected to drop to 17% within the next two years, as more companies begin to build proprietary models tailored to their business needs. Additionally, 88% of companies choose to develop relevant AI applications through internal teams, continuously enhancing their technical control and application capabilities. It is evident that while generative artificial intelligence has triggered transformations and losses in some basic positions, the demand for technical talents has surged, and talents with “AIGC+” cross-domain application capabilities will become the new favorites in the industry.

From a historical perspective, technological development has always driven the evolution of industrial forms. From the two industrial revolutions to the era of informatization and intelligence, each cycle of technological innovation has given birth to new dangers and opportunities. AIGC, with its powerful generative capabilities, not only disrupts content production methods but also brings opportunities and challenges to current media arts education in universities.

1. AIGC Brings New Opportunities to Media Arts Education in Universities. Media arts education encompasses knowledge from multiple disciplines, including communication studies, journalism, and art. Driven by the new liberal arts, media arts education in universities is gradually developing towards interdisciplinary and comprehensive directions, emphasizing practicality and applicability. AIGC injects new vitality into this and provides new development opportunities.

First, diverse tools enrich teaching methods. AIGC tools can penetrate all aspects of teaching, learning, and evaluation in media arts education, optimizing the educational process mechanism. Before class, they assist teachers in efficiently integrating cutting-edge teaching resources and industry dynamics, innovating teaching design; during class, they build intelligent Q&A systems to respond to students’ questions, using virtual scene simulation technology to enhance student participation and increase teaching interactivity; after class, they establish intelligent optimization evaluation systems, tailoring growth portfolios for students, accurately analyzing students’ theoretical and practical achievements, and providing detailed feedback to teachers.

Second, cross-border integration broadens disciplinary perspectives. The development of technology promotes media education in universities to further break through disciplinary boundaries by integrating cutting-edge technologies and theoretical knowledge from other fields, such as data science and big data, allowing students to communicate and learn from experts in different fields, thereby broadening their disciplinary perspectives and enhancing their interdisciplinary knowledge reserves. Through interdisciplinary knowledge cultivation, students can deeply understand the essence of media arts and industry demands from multiple angles and levels, laying a solid foundation for future employment and career development.

Third, technological innovation brings creative convenience. Media education emphasizes practical ability; whether it is film and television creation, news reporting, or advertising marketing, it requires proficiency in relevant software technologies. AIGC provides convenience for students’ free creation. Intelligent creative assistance tools help students quickly generate images, videos, and other multimedia content; intelligent editing tools can automate the processing of large amounts of materials, improving creative efficiency. With the support of artificial intelligence, students no longer need to be overly constrained by learning a single technology or software, allowing them to focus more on creativity itself and the comprehensive use of tools, thereby enhancing media literacy.

2. New Challenges Faced by Media Arts Education in Universities Under AIGC. The excellent information processing and content output capabilities of artificial intelligence bring convenience to teachers and students in the media arts field for work, study, and creation, but also impose stricter requirements on their identity recognition and comprehensive abilities.

First, rapid technological iteration poses new requirements for teachers’ capability roles. The rapid development of technology makes many teachers feel overwhelmed in preparing and applying new technologies, tools, and software, making it difficult for their technical literacy to keep pace with industry development. Moreover, the widespread use of AIGC is changing traditional teaching models, where teachers are no longer the sole transmitters of professional knowledge. Students’ access to knowledge is becoming increasingly diverse and easier, challenging the teachers’ status as the sole authority of knowledge, which can lead to an identity crisis regarding their profession.

Second, the weakening of industry barriers raises new requirements for students’ comprehensive qualities. With the deepening popularization of AIGC, industry barriers are gradually weakening, and traditional professional technical thresholds are lowering. Non-professionals are no longer restricted by complex skills and specialized equipment; end users can create high-quality works in a short time with simple operations. This change promotes diversification and personalization in content creation, and requires practitioners, especially students, to quickly adapt to changes, enhance their innovative capabilities and cross-border integration thinking, and cultivate personal core competitiveness to adapt to the constantly changing industry environment.

Third, students’ proficient use of AIGC may lead to content homogenization and over-reliance issues. While AIGC significantly improves students’ creative efficiency and work quality, it also brings potential concerns. Overuse by students can lead to homogenized works and lack of competitiveness, neglecting independent thinking and innovative capabilities, and weakening critical thinking and artistic discernment. Furthermore, over-reliance on technology may cause students to fall into a comfort zone driven by technology, neglecting the learning of professional knowledge and decreasing the emphasis on foundational theories and skills.

In the context of digital transformation, media arts education should closely follow industry development trends, prioritizing the cultivation of students’ interdisciplinary comprehensive qualities and practical operational abilities, updating educational concepts, anchoring educational goals, and continuously refining teaching methods to flexibly respond to the profound changes brought about by the industry.

1. Keep Up with Industry Development Trends and Update Courses and Faculty Accordingly. Relevant institutions should pay attention to the development and popularization of artificial intelligence, closely follow industry development trends and policy directions, and based on their own advantages, strive to build an AIGC media arts education ecosystem.

First, strengthen the development of relevant courses. General education and elective courses related to artificial intelligence, such as machine learning and natural language processing, can be introduced, along with periodic updates and supplements to teaching materials and courseware. AI elements can be integrated into traditional courses, such as guiding students to use relevant technologies to assist in creation and post-production in media production courses. For example, the Journalism and Media Center of the University of Hong Kong launched a course on “Applications of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Media” during the 2023-2024 academic year, guiding students to learn the relevant theories of large model languages and how to apply and discern AI-generated content.

Second, promote training and exchange for the teaching staff. Training on the principles and practical applications of AIGC technology can be provided for teachers, along with necessary software and hardware resources. At the same time, a platform for teacher exchanges can be established, such as industry exchange meetings, academic seminars, and workshops, integrating resources from both academic and industrial fields to encourage teachers to update their knowledge. For example, the School of Animation and Digital Arts at Communication University of China hosted the “AIGC Application Era Opens and Design Major Transformation” summit forum in June 2023, inviting over a hundred industry experts and media scholars to gather and conduct in-depth discussions on the integration of AI and industry and the application of AI in education.

2. Focus on Professional Foundations, Cultivating Interdisciplinary Composite Talents with “AIGC+X”. Professor Huang Xinyuan from Communication University of China and others believe that “while continuously enhancing their creativity and aesthetic abilities, students should also strengthen their learning and understanding of mathematics and computer science, achieving a collaboration where the production personnel act as ‘decision-makers’ and AI serves as ‘executors’ to complete the creation of artistic works.” On one hand, cultivate interdisciplinary composite talents with media professional knowledge as the core and artificial intelligence technical abilities as the radius. Encourage teachers to break down barriers between colleges and conduct cross-college teaching, pooling teaching resources and strengths from various colleges to design and implement interdisciplinary comprehensive courses. Through regular teacher visits and joint training activities, promote the collision of ideas and sharing of wisdom among teachers from different disciplines. Guide students to form interdisciplinary project teams to conduct research and project cooperation based on their professional backgrounds, combining AIGC technology. Participate together in competitions such as the “China College Computer Competition—AIGC Innovation Competition” sponsored by the National Association of Computer Education Research, which supports students in forming cross-disciplinary teams, allowing students to hone their interdisciplinary knowledge and skills and enhance their comprehensive qualities to better adapt to the challenges posed by emerging technologies and innovation trends in the future.

On the other hand, cultivate students’ awareness of lifelong learning and ethical literacy regarding AIGC. With its low threshold and high efficiency, generative artificial intelligence has rapidly infiltrated students’ learning and daily lives, but this convenience also comes with risks of students neglecting independent thinking in learning due to over-reliance and overlooking ethical norms in application. While cultivating students’ interdisciplinary capabilities, attention should also be paid to enhancing their comprehensive qualities, fostering students’ awareness of problems, critical thinking, and aesthetic appreciation abilities to improve their higher-order competitiveness. Establish monitoring mechanisms to ensure that students strictly adhere to ethical standards when using AI, respecting others’ privacy and intellectual property rights.

3. Build AIGC School-Enterprise Cooperation, Connecting Professional Education with Social Employment Needs. Establish a bridge connecting professional education, career development, and social needs, building a cooperative platform for school-enterprise linkage, promoting deep integration of industry, academia, and research. Enterprises often adapt to technological innovations first; universities can establish cooperative relationships with leading companies in the media and artificial intelligence fields, allowing students to intuitively engage with emerging technologies and understand industry dynamics through project cooperation and internships, enhancing their professional skills and connecting academia with industry. For example, Communication University of China and Intel jointly established an integrated platform for industry, academia, and research based on new AI chip technology and generative artificial intelligence software technology—the “Intel AI Generative Art Creation Practice Center,” collaborating on AIGC-related software and hardware technologies, and using a self-trained ink wash model “Ink Pool” to complete the first domestic AIGC martial arts animation short film “Dragon Gate.” The film has won several honors, including the Best Production Award at the 2024 26th Shanghai International Film Festival.

In addition to promoting school-enterprise cooperation, universities can actively invite industry professionals to campus to conduct relevant lectures and forums, sharing industry trends and training relevant skills with students. For example, the School of Design and Arts at Shaanxi University of Science and Technology closely follows industry frontiers, relying on national first-class professional construction points, hosting cutting-edge thematic forums, and inviting media talents and industry experts from universities such as Renmin University of China, Communication University of China, Tongji University, and Xi’an Jiaotong University to participate in the “Weiyang Mentor Forum,” holding a series of lectures such as “Innovation and Practice of Digital Media Art Education Driven by AIGC” and “The Arrival of AIGC Era: Innovation and Application of Digital Art Design” to share cutting-edge technology practice cases in the field of artificial intelligence with students. Through face-to-face sharing and discussions, students can understand the dynamics of AIGC in the media field and be guided to correctly perceive and use AI tools.

Author: Gao Feng is the Associate Dean, Professor, and Doctoral Supervisor at the School of Design and Arts, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology; Li Zhenge is a Master’s student at the School of Design and Arts, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology; Wen Ya is the Director of the Experimental Practice Teaching Center at the School of Arts, Northwest University, and an Associate Professor.