Creativity and Meaning in the Era of AI
For the past 2,000 years, the only known entities capable of meaningful creative thought have been humans. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) marks a fundamental shift in the course of our species and our world. This is the first time in history that something other than a human is capable of creative thought. While creativity itself has historically been an understudied topic and the study of AI is relatively new, scholars and scientists are already deeply considering how the way we think about creativity - and our relationship to creativity - is destined to change as these new technologies are adopted.
The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the creative process has been a topic of interest in the past decade. Studies have explored two areas: models for how AI can enhance human creativity, and consumer perceptions of AI-generated content. One prevalent theme in research is the concept of AI as a complement to human creativity, not a replacement. Scholars suggest that AI should be used for intelligent thinking while humans should be left to think creatively. This view has given rise to the idea of "cocreativity," where human and machine intelligence are seamlessly blended. Co-creative experiments have been conducted, and most involve AI as a suggestive tool that offers ideas for human artists to modify. Two examples of co-creative experiments show the difference between AI-generated music within a series of structured parameters and an AI that holistically understands an artist's whole sketch, processing the entire image at once. Another model of cocreative blending focuses on divergent thinking, where an AI generates a high quantity of ideas from which a human can converge to isolate good ones. Despite the enthusiasm surrounding AI's potential for creative support, scholars emphasize that contemporary AI models cannot think creatively, and attempting to develop them to do so may miss the true highest potential of AI technology.
Name: Wesley Sappington
Hometown: New York, New York
Major: ETBD & Entrepreneurship
Year: Sophomore
Fun Fact: I started my own business at 15
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