Creation over generation

A creative students thoughts on the AI Brutus figure

If you’ve been on any social media platform lately, I’m sure you’ve seen the personal action figure trend. While participating in trends is a great way to gain more attention and connect more with communities, the action figure trend is one I cannot get behind. 

On April 11, 2025, the official Ferris account joined the trend, posting their “very own” version of Brutus as an action figure. This post received an overwhelming number of students and professors disappointed to see a popular AI trend on their feeds. 

As a creative, I tend to steer away from artificial intelligence. I am not trying to be a hypocrite, and I admit that I’ve used Adobe Firefly occasionally to generate images for my design coursework. An example of this is themed roller coaster images to use in a web design project for a theme park. However, AI use has become less of a tool and more of a trend many are against. 

Many people don’t understand the harm behind AI, and I can’t blame them. To most, AI is the same as any other electronic tool, such as a computer or virtual reality. As long as you’re not taking credit for work that isn’t yours, what’s the harm?

According to researchers at the University of Massachusetts, training AI models produces around 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, which is equal to about 300 round-trip flights from New York and San Francisco, nearly five times the total emission the average car uses in its lifetime.

This is why I believe it is so important to focus on using AI in ways that help us. Participating in a social media trend isn’t a wise decision, especially at the cost of the environment. You may not think that one post can do much harm, but when one post becomes thousands from other users, the damage is noticeable. 

The problem isn’t just about recognizing environmental awareness, it’s about the fact that we have thousands of students in art-related fields, such as Kendall students, digital animation and game design and the design program. Students who are paying tuition and taking out loans to study within their creative fields. Students with creative minds. 

AI art isn’t original. For AI to generate art, it has to scan a variety of styles and other art; it steals artwork, which is why it’s called generating and not creating. 

Artists are already struggling with companies stealing their artwork. For example, the popular mall store “Hot Topic” has had multiple cases of art theft over the years, especially with fandom-related artwork.

Art theft is already frustrating, but at least when large corporations steal artwork, it’s easy to track down and go through the legal process to stop this artwork from getting mass-produced and sold. AI is a lot harder for artists to track down. 

The majority of the comments, including television and digital media production professor Nick Kuiper, were quick to speak up about Ferris’ participation in this AI trend and bring up the point that we have students capable of original and creative artwork. Students who would love to create artwork to be shared with proud alumni, students and parents alike.

I am not a very skilled artist, but I was still able to create a more original version of this trend, which is the graphic for this story. All I had to do was take the time and do the research.

Since then, Ferris posted an apology and took down the post, which I am very proud to see. I can only hope Ferris continues to grow and celebrate more of their creative students instead of taking the easy way out.