The Arts and Humanities AI Institute (AHAII) in the College of Arts and Sciences is a pioneering center for humanistic scholarship and pedagogy, creative exploration and public engagement at the intersection of AI and human experiences.
Developed to expand on Ohio State’s AI Fluency Initiative, which integrates AI skills and experiences into the undergraduate curriculum, AHAII builds on the college’s distinctive strengths, as well as on faculty expertise in AI foundations and applications in departments ranging from art and design to linguistics and philosophy. The arts and humanities are essential to building our collective future in light of AI technologies, and to ensure human needs and achievements are central to the AI technologies we build in the future.
AHAII serves as a community hub where faculty and students can
- explore questions central to how humanity engages with AI
- develop innovative curricula
- connect with external partners to provide student internships in arts and humanities fields focused on AI
- collaborate on important AI-related topics such as ethics, bias, creativity, rediscovering history, and art and technology
- use and critique AI tools to understand how they interact with arts and culture
College of Arts and Sciences launches Arts and Humanities AI Institute (AHAII) to support research and teaching
This innovative center brings together scholarship, teaching, creative exploration and public engagement to explore the intersection of artificial intelligence and the human experience.
Arts and Humanities AI Institute programs
Arts and Humanities AI Explorers
The Arts and Humanities AI Explorers program supports tenure-track faculty who are “AI curious,” meaning that they are interested in developing skills and engaging with AI as an aspect of their work. Faculty dedicate one semester to retooling their scholarship and pedagogy in light of AI knowledge and discoveries. Faculty also receive a $3500 fund to support research and/or creative work. They are also charged with helping to socialize the AI Fluency Initiative through public events, and through assisting units to rethink their major curricula with AI integration in mind. Regular meetings of the full cohort are hosted by the Humanities Institute.
Current Arts and Humanities AI Explorers come from the Departments of Theatre, Film, and Media Arts; Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Germanic Languages and Literatures; Near Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures; Design; History; and Spanish and Portuguese; as well as the Ohio State Newark campus.
Arts and Humanities AI Postdoctoral/Post-MFA Scholars
Aligning with three new undergraduate AI certificates, these two-year postdoctoral or post-MFA scholars are charged with helping to launch the certificates and contribute to the intellectual and pedagogical life of the AI Fluency Initiative. Each of the three scholars will be in residence at Ohio State from autumn 2026 through spring 2028.
Current scholars in the program come from the Department of Philosophy, the School of Music and the Department of Linguistics.
AI, Art and Creativity certificate
Coming soon
AI, Ethics and Society certificate
This certificate trains students to become ethically and socially attuned designers and users of artificial intelligence, helps students identify and evaluate ethical and social problems that emerge from the design and use of artificial intelligence as well as forecast the social and ethical needs for artificial intelligence in a variety of contexts
AI, Language and Mind certificate
This certificate affords students the opportunity to explore issues regarding the myriad relationships between AI, language and mind. Some of these issues are longstanding ones regarding the nature of mind – e.g. what consciousness is, and whether thinking machines are possible. Other issues concern the potential scientific implications of AI technologies for the study of human language and cognition and their practical implications for various domains of human endeavor.