Can a machine make art?

What's in the lesson

1. 1Warm-up
2. 2In this lesson
3. 3Guess the words (1)Vocabulary exercise
4. 4Guess the words (2)Vocabulary exercise
5. 5Check the wordsVocabulary
6. 6Check your understandingReading comprehension
7. 7Listen: an illustratorListening comprehension
8. 8Use the new wordsVocabulary exercise
9. 9What does it mean?Grammar exercise
10. 10The passive in more tensesGrammar rule
11. 11AI newsGrammar exercise
12. 12Say it right: art wordsSpeaking practice
13. 13The competition committeeSpeaking practice
14. 14Let's discussDiscussion
15. 15Wrap-up

Homework

1. 1Homework: closest meaningVocabulary exercise
2. 2Homework: your sentencesVocabulary exercise
3. 3Homework: the passive in more tensesGrammar exercise
4. 4Homework: is AI art real art?Discussion

Words

• prompt/prɑːmpt/

  an instruction or question that you type to tell an AI program what to do

• creative/kriˈeɪtɪv/

  good at making new things or thinking of new ideas

• original/əˈrɪdʒənl/

  new and different, not copied from something else

• permission/pərˈmɪʃn/

  when someone says that you are allowed to do something

• artificial/ˌɑːrtɪˈfɪʃl/

  made by people, not natural (artificial intelligence: computer programs that can learn and make things)

• replace/rɪˈpleɪs/

  to take the place of someone or something, or to put a new thing in the place of an old one

• copyright/ˈkɑːpiraɪt/

  the legal right to be the only one who can copy, sell or use a book, a song, a picture, etc.

• brainstorm/ˈbreɪnstɔːrm/

  to think of a lot of ideas quickly, often with other people

• edit/ˈedɪt/

  to make changes to a text, a picture or a video to make it better

• controversial/ˌkɑːntrəˈvɜːrʃl/

  causing a lot of disagreement

Two slides from the lesson

Warm-up

Let's talk about art and AI.

1. Are you good at art? Do you draw, paint, take photos or make music?
2. Have you ever used an AI tool to make a picture, a text or a song? What did you make?
3. Do you think AI makes people more creative or less creative?

Grammar rule

The passive in more tenses

be + past participle, in any tense

You know the present and past passive from unit 4 (is made, was made). The passive works the same way in other tenses: change the form of be.

Tense	Passive	Example
present perfect	has / have been + past participle	Billions of images have been created.
past perfect	had been + past participle	His picture had been made with AI.
future	will be + past participle	The question will be discussed for years.
with a modal	can / must / should be + past participle	AI art must be labeled.
present continuous	is / are being + past participle	A new law is being written.

Add by + the doer only when it is important who or what did it: Will illustrators be replaced by AI? More in this unit's grammar lesson.