Purchase Students Put AI on Ice
By Nolan Locke
Over 50 students gathered around the clock tower in solidarity against generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). Students brought arts and crafts supplies and musical instruments to showcase their human creativity.
With college students nationwide concerned about AI's impact, Ryan Dolinsky, a senior, co-organized the walkout with fellow senior Zoe Marks.
“Yeah, I think we’re all just pretty scared of AI,” said Dolinsky. “The attack on intellectualism, creativity- that's what we really want to focus on.”
Both Dolinsky and Marks created the event in collaboration with irreplaceable.org, which helped coordinate a national walkout event titled “FREEZE AI NOW!” and provided templates for posters as well as $250 to be used on supplies.
Irreplaceable.org is a grassroots movement founded in New York by political activist Phil Aroneanu, well known for various climate change-related campaigns such as 350.org. And focuses on slowing the development of AI and creating proper regulations for the new technology.
Protestors crowded around the clock tower using the resources provided by Dolinsky and Marks, as well as other students, in order to celebrate human art, with some playing guitar and singing while others created anti-AI signage and finger-painted on a massive sheet provided for protestors to leave their mark on.
“We want to have an art space, a music space, a writing space and just celebrate creativity,” said Dolinsky.
Senior creative writing major Belle Defala joined in on the protest, providing another creative outlet for eager protestors.
“I'm running this station with writing prompts, and I'm asking people about the last book that they read,” said Defala. “We're trying to get people to think about creativity and to think about their creative process and what gets them going, and what makes the creativity of people irreplaceable in the face of AI. AI doesn't have the capability to think and to make mistakes the way that people do, and so we're encouraging people to create and make mistakes.”
Many students attended the walkout to voice concerns about AI in both academic and career settings.
“I'm in this class right now that's about the history of jazz, and we just had an assignment to listen to an album and review it,” said Defala. “There were still people who used AI to write the assignment. It's just heartbreaking because it just shows that people are willing to take the lazy way out and to just, and to let their own voices”
Senior playwriting and screenwriting major Aaron O’Driscoll shared a similar sentiment, highlighting concerns about generative AI's impact on the arts.
“I think generative AI in specific is totally anti-art,” said O’Driscoll. “It’s anti pretty much everything that we are taught here at Purchase.”
Students also highlighted frustrations with the potential use of AI by professors, with some particularly looking for more clear AI regulations from Purchase itself.
“It makes me really upset,” said O’Driscoll. “It seems like all the professors have different places where they draw the line. It seems that every professor draws the line just one step further from where they go. It’s really disheartening because we all pay a lot of money to go here and the whole goal of this program should be to foster our creative voices and channel it into something.”
Freshman English major Addie Umlas echoed much of the same sentiment.
“It becomes really frustrating when you see teachers using it in lesson plans,” said Umlas. “It [AI] is a tool like a hammer is a tool. But when you start hitting people with it, it’s no longer being used like that. AI is a tool being used incredibly irresponsibly.”
Additional reporting by Summer Tyler
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