Digital Skills Education

The rise of AI is impossible to ignore – and for many artists, the fear of having their work scraped, copied, or even replaced by AI is very real.

That’s exactly why we teamed up with the Scottish Artists Union to run What Artists Need to Know About AI. This workshop is designed to help artists across Scotland get to grips with the opportunities and risks of AI in their creative practice.

It was great to see so many artists from across the country joining us. Painters, illustrators, filmmakers, sound artists – all coming together to get informed, share concerns, and explore what AI really means for their work.

At the start of the workshop, unsurprisingly, many artists felt a mix of anxiety and curiosity around AI. Words like threat, fear, loss of income, and muddying the waters came up fast — but there was also cautious optimism, recognising that AI could potentially help their creative processes rather than replace them.

Can artists spot AI-generated art?

We had a bit of fun testing our ability to spot AI-generated images. Spoiler: it’s getting much harder. Sure, sometimes you can catch AI with tell-tale glitches (wonky fingers, strange shadows, surreal details). But increasingly, AI tools are producing images that are hard to distinguish from human-created ones.

We discovered that AI is good at giving you the most predictable version of an image. Yasmin, one of our participants, insightfully pointed out that the results tend to be the most stereotypical version of what you describe. Creativity, then, still belongs to the human imagination.

How can artists protect themselves from AI mimicry 

A major focus of the session was the ethical considerations surrounding AI. Many artists were understandably concerned about style mimicry and their work being used to train AI models without consent. We explained the current (and still developing) legal landscape in the UK, where an “opt-out” approach is being suggested – meaning your work could be used unless you actively say otherwise.

We also introduced tools like Glaze, which artists can use to “cloak” their images, making it much harder for AI models to mimic their style. While Glaze isn’t perfect (it can change the appearance of your images), it’s currently one of the most promising protective measures out there.

Feedback from participants

Excellent course. It has opened up new ways of thinking about AI.

This was a really great course and it addressed a good balance of positions on the subject.

An interesting subject that I now have an overview about and will possibly use AI a little more.

Fantastic!! Really great course and tutors! Thank you!