Confederation College Unveils Storm AI and AI Use Declaration
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Confederation College has announced the launch of Storm AI, a groundbreaking digital edition of Storm, the College’s beloved Thunderhawk mascot. Storm AI is a digital mascot powered by artificial intelligence and designed to represent Confederation College in a virtual capacity. The initiative is set to transform interactions with students, alumni, and the wider community through engaging and innovative depictions in environments beyond the confines of how the traditional physical mascot can be used.
Designed by an alumni of the College’s Interactive Media Development program who worked with the Marketing, Recruitment and Communications team on a 1-year NOHFC internship, Storm AI has been an engaging project characterized by iterative design and experimentation with creative and future-focused intent. From racing down snow-covered slopes to perching atop the campus's tallest trees, Storm AI can infuse a blend of excitement, humour, and relatability into the college's visual storytelling, capturing the spirit and energy of college life in unique and imaginative ways.
In step with the release of Storm AI and continuous improvements to Storm Bot, the College website's AI chatbot released in the Fall of 2023, the Marketing and Communications team is also introducing their Declaration on the Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools. It outlines the ethical approach to incorporating AI across the college's Marketing and Communications efforts, ensuring the technology enhances rather than replaces human creativity.
Alexandra Jones, Manager of Marketing, Recruitment, and Communications at Confederation College, reflects this commitment: "At the heart of Storm AI's development lies our dedication to ethical standards in AI deployment. It's about amplifying our creative capabilities and finding new ways to engage with students and the public."
Jones says of the AI declaration, "We are committed to utilizing AI to support and amplify the powerful creativity of our team, which includes writers, photographers, video content creators, graphic designers, and strategists - not to replace them. Our team has been incredibly eager to work with these new ideas and opportunities and to look for new ways to integrate these and other modern tools into our workflow."
Storm AI was developed leveraging a form of Stable Diffusion, a generative AI model that produces unique photorealistic images from text and image prompts, with the potential for future enhancements, including a text and logo-trained SDXL model. This model allows the addition of the college branding and logos to clothing worn by Storm without the need for hours of image editing.
Storm AI will make its debut across Confederation College's digital platforms in the coming months, showcasing the mascot in a range of exciting, digitally enhanced scenarios.