How should we teach skills in the Age of AI? Recently, I shared my approach with a group of teachers who were advanced ChatGPT users: bring students through the learning process in a human, physical way, then use Gen AI to build upon our human effort.
I used my “Learn How To Draw Your Hand” lesson as a starting point. Within 10 minutes, I can teach anyone how to draw a decent version of their hand by mere observation and drawing simple rectangles and squares.
Everyone is always surprised that they can do this, because the art teachers in their lives usually taught them art in a complicated and confounding way. I teach this lesson in my advertising and creativity classes at Nanyang Technological University Singapore.
Back to the teachers – they were very pleased with their drawings. Then, I asked them to take a photo of their drawing and upload it to ChatGPT.
Prompt: “Clean up drawing of hand and add color.”
Most of the time, ChatGPT will rework the messy drawing into a clean graphic or photo of a hand.
I said, “But you see, you made it happen first. And now you have learned a new skill.”
The whole point of the exercise is to demonstrate that even though Gen AI can do amazing things, we still need to learn skills and knowledge the traditional way. Anyone can generate a perfect and beautiful hand with Gen AI today, but what I’m teaching here is the ability to observe things carefully and create our own form of art.
And in case you say, “But I don’t want to be an artist!”, that’s not what I’m teaching. Instead, I’m teaching this: Once you learn how to see and draw like an artist, your ability to pay attention improves, and that in turn enhances your other skills.