AI and ethics in Arts and Humanities

Dr Ruth Eaton is a Lecturer in Design Contexts at Manchester School of Art and Design, researching digital communication, dress and gender.
Dr Adi Kuntsman is an interdisciplinary scholar of digital media, culture and society, working across sociology, media and communication studies, and environmental justice. Adi leads the Digital Society research group, is Chair of the Arts and Humanities Ethics Committee at Manchester Metropolitan University and is co-editor of the Emerald book series “Digital Materialities, Sustainable Futures”.
Polina Chizhova-Wright is an artist, curator, and PhD researcher in Curating and Architecture at Manchester Metropolitan University, funded by the Leverhulme Unit for the Design of Cities of the Future (LUDeC). Polina is Co-Director of the creative studio Strange Quark, and recent work includes papers and workshops on generative AI in placemaking, digital art, and inclusive urban futures.

This poster below is a one-page framework for thinking through AI use in research, teaching and professional services. It covers tiers of use and disclosure, and features an ethics checklist.

This resource was originally developed for a research ethics context but has been adapted here for teaching and administrative use, since the underlying questions – around purpose, oversight, and accountability – apply just as much to lesson planning, marking, and admin tasks as they do to research. The goal is to give staff a quick, practical way to locate their own AI use on a spectrum, rather than treating “AI ethics” as an abstract or research-only concern.

Adapted from Chizhova-Wright, Eaton and Kuntsman (2026), Manchester Metropolitan University.