Teaching Creatives to be A.I. Provocateurs: Establishing a Digital Humanist Approach for Generative A.I. in the Classroom

This case study examines the implementation of OpenAI's Generative AI (GenAI) in a graduate interactive storytelling course at Ball State University in Spring '23. Adopting a Posthumanist perspective, the course treated GenAI as a synthetic collaborator to bridge technical disparities among the students, enhancing their characters, dialogue, and visual production. Students also used the tool to help understand complex technical documentation. However, while the approach led to overall success, the case study proposes a shift towards Digital Humanism for a more balanced, ethical integration of GenAI in the classroom. This perspective prioritizes human creative agency over computational creativity, encouraging students to interact strategically with GenAI and nurture their unique creative style. The study emphasizes the role of educators in preparing students for a world increasingly utilizing GenAI while ensuring human creativity remains central.