Abstract for paper presented at Education After the Algorithm, Dublin City University, 21 February 2025

Helen Sheridan1,2, Emma Clarke1,3, Nic Flanagan4

1ADAPT; 2TU Dublin; 3DCU; 4MTU

‘The Bigger Picture: Reimagining AI Imagery’ is a collaborative, interdisciplinary initiative designed to address public misconceptions and concerns about Artificial Intelligence (AI) (The Bigger Picture, 2024). The project offers a timely opportunity to reshape perceptions of AI through innovative visual storytelling, moving beyond the sci-fi-inspired tropes, limited aesthetics and inaccuracies that dominate current stock image libraries.

The predominance of anthropomorphised robots, glowing brains and binary code fail to convey what AI truly is or how it functions. More critically, the current imagery reinforces misconceptions and restricts wider public understanding of the actual, realistic uses and impact of AI on society (Dihal & Duarte, 2023).

‘The Bigger Picture’ project primarily focuses on promoting Explainable and Communicable AI by fostering informed discussions about the implications of AI in the creative industries and encouraging public participation in the process of artistic creation, interpretation, and critique. Through a series of participatory workshops, artist commissions, public exhibitions, a website and accompanying zine, the project invites communities to engage directly with concepts around how AI is represented in art and media.

A central objective of the project was to promote Explainable AI—the goal of making AI technologies understandable and approachable for non-technical users. By introducing some basic concepts around how explanations for AI are depicted in visual terms such as using decision trees, if-then binary statements or showing feature relevance (Sheridan, Murphy, & O’Sullivan, 2024) participants became familiar with the underlying concepts and inner workings of AI. Participants also explored the broader implications of AI on visual culture by creating images that referenced or were inspired by their own feelings around AI both before and after each workshop and through an uncoding exercise designed to explain what happens during ‘prompting’ in generative AI. Lastly, participants undertook a pictogram design challenge exploring how to visually depict complex themes around how AI works which encouraged critical thinking about the impact of AI on creative practice and on society more widely.

Workshop outputs informed a call for submissions titled “AI is Everywhere” (Call for Submissions: The Bigger Picture, 2024). This call challenged artists and image-makers to depict AI’s current realities rather than relying on dystopian or futuristic clichés. Importantly, submissions were required to be non-AI-generated, emphasising human creativity and reflection. Themes explored included AI’s inherent humanity and its integration into daily life, contrasting with its frequent portrayal as non-human or purely mechanical. During Science Week 2024, ‘The Bigger Picture’ exhibitions showcased thought-provoking artwork on the theme “AI is Everywhere”. Selected images were also included in the Better Images of AI online library (Better Images of AI, n.d.), a resource promoting accurate and diverse AI representations.

‘The Bigger Picture’ demonstrates how interdisciplinary collaboration can challenge dominant narratives about AI and empower communities to engage critically with its impact on visual culture and society. By combining XAI concepts with creative expression, ‘The Bigger Picture’ is re-imagining how AI is understood, represented and contextualised in imagery.

References

Better Images of AI. (n.d.). Betterimagesofai.org. https://betterimagesofai.org/images

Dihal, K., & Duarte, T. (2023). Better images of AI: A guide for users and creators. Cambridge and London: The Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and We and AI.

Call for Submissions: The Bigger Picture. (2024, October 21). The Research Ireland ADAPT Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology. https://bit.ly/The-Bigger-Picture2024

Sheridan, H., Murphy, E., & O’Sullivan, D. (2024). Human centered approaches and taxonomies for explainable artificial intelligence. Conference papers, (427). Retrieved from https://arrow.tudublin.ie/scschcomcon/427

The Bigger Picture. (2024). The Bigger Picture. https://thebiggerpictureai.com/