Welcome to Dev Legas

Jennifer Solberg, Ph.D.
Founder & CEO

Every year, I look forward to the Learning Guild’s DevLearn conference in Las Vegas. It’s a terrific opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues, hear some great speakers, and check out the latest and greatest in L&D. A few months before the conference, they have a competition to design the logo for the conference tee shirt. There are some very talented artists in the DevLearn community, and I am by no means one of them. So, I never considered entering until this year. What changed? Did I take dozens of art classes and practice tirelessly? No. Just like everyone else, I started using generative AI tools on a daily basis. And so, when DevLearn announced the tee shirt contest this year, I found a golden opportunity to do two things I love doing at the same time: winning a contest and entertaining myself.

​Here are my submissions:

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The aesthetic is self-explanatory. Regardless, a good artist leaves their work open to interpretation.

Now, to be clear, I did not actually think I was going to win this contest, nor did I mean to. I wanted it to be very clear that I had used AI to create these images, so I left the typos and miscellaneous dots in. Besides, I think they provide an element of messiness that symbolizes the questionable decisions some of us make in Las Vegas. I was hoping to prove a point, and the Guild's leadership did exactly what I thought they would: I was told that my submissions were disqualified because I used AI to create them.

This perspective is a little ironic given that according to the DevLearn Concierge GPT made with OpenAI's ChatGPT, 27 sessions at the conference are focused on applications of AI in L&D. Furthermore, there is an entire day-long AI and Learning Symposium on Tuesday, where you can learn how to use AI tools in instructional design. Despite the conference's clear - and appropriate - focus on using AI to get your work done, when it came down to accepting work created by AI, they had a contradictory position.

There are myriad opinions on how, when, and where using AI tools (like Dall-E, in this case) to create things is acceptable. This time last year, I told people that the government, courts, and regulatory bodies had a responsibility to make rules and laws about this, and that hopefully we would get some clarity on the issue soon. Well, it's been a year, and we are no closer to resolving this debate. In the meantime, we are going to have to operate on a case-by-case basis, follow our guts, and do what we think is best. Here are a few things the Guild (or anyone having a contest) could do in the future:
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1. Set clear ground rules. If you don't want work done using any AI tools, you need to say so up front. However, just saying "no AI" isn't enough - you have to specify what kinds of tools you mean. There's a big difference between asking ChatGPT to write your term paper for you and using Word's grammar checker, but both are AI tools. There's also a difference between using ChatGPT to brainstorm ideas for a paper that the author then writes and having ChatGPT write the whole thing. You can draw the line wherever you want, but your intent should be clear.
2. Request proof of creation. You can ask creators to submit documentation showing their work in progress. These could include screenshots, sketches, or other artifacts that show the creator's process.
3. Learn to identify markers of AI. Tools exist to detect AI-generated text and images, however, they are not always accurate (see my last blog post about those here). Familiarizing yourself with the hallmarks of AI-generated work can help, too. Often, pictures made by AI have odd details, overly complex backgrounds, inconsistent lighting or shadows, and at least 15 fingers per person. In my submissions, I left the typos so it would be obvious. But how do they know that other submissions weren't AI-generated or assisted?
4. Establish different categories. People may be less likely to submit AI-generated work where it's not wanted if there is a separate category of award for work done with AI.
5. Make like Elsa and let it go. If all of this seems too onerous, you can just accept that people will likely use the tools available to them and not worry about it. After all, you wouldn't want me talking about using AI tools at a conference if I wasn't using them myself, right?

​Personally, I'd love to see these designs on a shirt, but I'll settle for a sticker. If you want one, too, find me Tuesday at the AI and Learning Symposium and Wednesday at 3:00 in room 122, where I'll be discussing research about trust in AI and automated systems. You can also get one from Build Capable's Sarah Mercier, who will be at the RISC booth showing off an amazing new product. See you in Dev Legas!