An artificial intelligence image designed by Matthew Colton. It was generated by a custom AI model. Credit: Courtesy of Professor Robillard
The first artificial intelligence design course was introduced this past summer semester at Ohio State.
Design 5193 – “AI and Generative Design” – used platforms such as Gemini, Stable Diffusion and ControlNet to use AI as a tool and design method for multiple creative projects throughout the class. Though Ohio State lists over 50 AI-fluency courses, this is the first AI-based course in the university’s design department.
“We have to make sense of something that is becoming and transforming,” said Gaetan Robillard, Assistant Professor for Computational Visual Design, who taught the course. “That’s the state of affairs. It’s changing all of the time. Students had to enter this realm and be able to study it and be able to leverage the current tools and build their own, in a way. So, it serves their own design purposes.”
The course was available for graduate and undergraduate students. While it is not active this semester, it is looking to start back up in the Spring 2027 semester, Robillard said.
The course is also part of the “AI, Art and Creativity Certificate” offered by the College of Arts and Sciences.
The university Board of Trustees said that course explores the potential of AI in an art field at the Aug. 20 meeting.
“We often think of AI in the stem fields or in computer science or a related discipline,” Interim Executive Vice President and Provost Trevor Brown said at the meeting. “Here is a great example of how we’re incorporating AI into the arts and humanities.”
Robillard said that the course focuses on learning the science behind this new technology, as well as the history in its development.
“We live in an era where synthetic media is circulating on the web in social networks and creates various impacts on society and youth,” Robillard said. “Students need to grasp this and be able to have critical tools to navigate it, make good choices and empower themselves.”
Robillard said that since AI is so prominent in the majority of job fields, it is important for students to know how to use and operate it.
“Another person will know AI and maybe steal a job,” Robillard said. “So, the students need to learn about it so that they are more skilled, competent and competitive.”
Robillard’s research focuses on computer art and generative media, according to the department of design website. He was a postdoctoral researcher in AI and digital humanities with the international research group Arcanes at Université de Montréal from 2023 to 2024.
“This is just a new way of operating,” Robillard said. “Now, it comes with a lot of risks, a lot of opportunities. It comes with beautiful things, ugly things. Designers have a lot to do with making things more beautiful or more inspiring or more easy to use.”