Artificial Intelligence and Creative Learning

Jeongki Lim, Professor of Strategic Design and Management and Dean of the School of Design Strategies, focuses his research on how technology like AI can be integrated into our ability to create. Central to his work is the concept of creative learning—the capacity to make something new and useful that exists inherently within all of us—and the question of how technology can facilitate and develop that capacity within humans. He has positioned AI as a “peer” in both early childhood and higher education settings, studying the relational dynamics that emerge when AI is perceived as a participant engaging in creative activities alongside human learners.

As an arts and design educator for over a decade, Lim watches AI become increasingly predominant in society and daily life with specific concern about learning outcomes. While AI can automate aspects of creative processes and provide instant efficiency, this doesn’t necessarily mean students engage in activities that develop their own creative abilities within a domain. His empirical research includes studies using robotic arms with drawing pens, where students and AI engaged in the same drawing activity—many participants unsure how AI was learning and mimicking their styles. In kindergarten studies in Finland, the robotic arms were carefully designed in size and functionality to feel more peer-like to the children. This hands-on work reveals a profound insight: the difficult work for AI often seems easy for humans, and tasks we take for granted, like walking, prove enormously complex to code and build—cultivating an appreciation for human capability.

Lim frames this work through design strategy’s core logic: how an institution, organization, or community moves from point A to point B, and what that destination should be. Confronting competing visions of AI-enabled creative communities—from empowerment to dystopia—he refuses the binary of simplistic thinking. Rather than accepting predetermined futures, he focuses on what we can do now to better understand how this technology can be integrated, ensuring the point B we reach is a much more empowering environment for the creative community itself. His work extends from empirical studies to shaping the policies, guidelines, and tools that enable faculty and students to take up AI meaningfully, alongside curatorial work like the AI art and design exhibition at Parsons.