Perception of AI and Human Collaboration

Research Hypothesis
The study hypothesizes that design students' perceptions of authorship in AI-assisted design vary depending on the degree of influence their original image prompts have on the final AI-generated outcomes. It aims to understand at what point students consider AI-generated images their own creation and how comfortable they are in collaborating with AI tools, giving credit to the AI where due.

Data Collection &Analysis
Data was gathered through a mixed-methods approach involving an AI-aided design workshop followed by a survey. Participants included second-year industrial design (ID) and interior architecture (IA) students. The workshop introduced the Vizcom AI tool, which students used to generate AI-assisted designs based on their studio project outcomes. The survey assessed students' familiarity with AI tools, perceptions of authorship, reasons for their perceptions, and comfort levels in co-designing with AI. The sample size was 30 students (12 ID, 18 IA). difference in familiarity level with AI tools (Q1), perception of authorship (Q2), reasons of perception of the puthorship (Q3), and comfort level of collaboration with ai (Q4) between ID and IA students. A Spearman's rank correlation coefficient can be calculated to assess the relationship between students' familiarity with AI tools (Q1) and their comfort levels in co-designing with AI (Q4). Textual analysis can be conducted to thematically analyze the responses from the open-ended question, Q5.

Notable Findings

T-Test: The T-test results indicate that there is no statistically significant difference between ID and IA students in terms of their familiarity with AI tools, perception of authorship, reasons for their perception of authorship, and comfort level with collaborating with AI.

Perception of Authorship: 33.3% of students considered AI-generated images as their own creation up to a 50% image prompt influence level. Significant thresholds for authorship were identified between 40% and 70% image prompt influence, with most students feeling a sense of ownership within this range.

Comfort with AI Collaboration: 46.4% of participants were comfortable or very comfortable collaborating with AI and might give credit to AI. A moderate positive correlation (rs=0.48) was found between familiarity with AI tools and comfort in co-designing with AI.

Reasons for Perceived Authorship: The primary reason cited was that the design was still based on the students' original research or findings (60%).

Implications for Future Research
The study's findings suggest a need for further research with a larger and more diverse sample. Exploring perceptions of more experienced designers and different design fields could provide a broader understanding of authorship in AI-assisted design. Future studies could also delve deeper into the reasons behind neutral attitudes towards AI collaboration and explore the impact of storytelling in enhancing AI-human collaboration.