EXPLORING GENERATIVE AI UTILIZATIONS AMONG VOCATIONAL GRAPHIC DESIGN MAJOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN INDONESIA:

Abstract

The swift incorporation of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in the creative sectors has led to the need to reconsider the concepts of graphic design education, and especially in vocational higher education, where technical proficiency and industry orientation are essential. Although most of the global dialogue is about the ethical aspects of the AI-created art, it lacks clarity on the real, day-to-day applications of such tools by learners in their practical learning contexts. This chapter examines the way GenAI is navigated and integrated into the graphics design vocational education students in Indonesia at the higher level of education in the creative processes and academics. Employing a qualitative case study approach at the faculty of vocation, graphic design major at a public university in Indonesia, this research investigates the multifaceted roles GenAI plays in the student experience. The paper takes a sociomateriality lens to explore the entanglement of human agency and algorithmic materiality in the design process by recognizing that creative practice is co-constituted of both social and material forces. Instead of considering AI as an instrument of the final output, this study aims at tracing its use throughout the different phases of the design process such as initial research, conceptual brainstorming and technical implementation. The study in particular explains the patterns of use in which students embrace the use of GenAI tools to supplement their creative abilities or facilitate administrative activities through in-depth interviews and structured observations. Moreover, this paper examines the perceptions of students on agency, examining the ways in which they bargain the extent to which humans or algorithms aid their work. The investigation also points to the context-specific problems and the socio-pedagogical peculiarities of the adoption of AI in the environment of Indonesian vocational education. In addition, the results will create a moderate approach to the subject of the publicness of AI in feature of giving voice to the future generation of creative professionals in the Global South. Through these experiential accounts of their lives, this chapter helps in building more authentic and responsive learning systems that raise critical and creative integrity in the students to prepare them to be a future generation of human-AI collaboration.