Can an AI chatbot make a person more creative?
Supporters of artificial intelligence say it can serve as a muse, but critics doubt it 鈥� they say that it does little more than remix existing work.
Now, new research suggests that elements of both arguments are right. AI might be able to help a person become more creative, but it risks decreasing creativity in society overall.
'New' ideas
Questions have swirled around the use of AI in art since large language models (also known as LLMs) burst on the scene almost two years ago. Companies such as OpenAI have touted their products as tools that artists could use to increase their output. While some writers say they鈥檝e , many other artists and creators have expressed skepticism. Some , alleging that the tools use copyrighted work for training purposes.
Oliver Hauser, an economist at the University of Exeter in the UK who studies artificial intelligence, wanted to try and answer the basic question of whether AI could increase creativity.
鈥淚t does have a sort of incredible ability to sort of come up with content at the click of a button,鈥� he says. On the other hand, AI can often produce stories that are similar in nature.
鈥淚t could be that it鈥檚 not as creative as you might think, and it doesn鈥檛 help you be more creative,鈥� he says.
To try and get some hard data on this squishy question of creativity, Hauser teamed up with Anil Doshi at the University College London School of Management. They recruited nearly 300 people, who Doshi says did not identify as professional writers. 鈥淲e asked them to write a short, eight-sentence story,鈥� he says.
Around one-third of the writers had to come up with ideas on their own, while others were given starter ideas generated by the chatbot ChatGPT 4.0. Those that got help were divided into two subgroups: one that got a single AI-generated idea, and one that got to choose from up to five.
Crucially, Doshi says, both the human-only and AI-assisted groups had to write the stories themselves.
鈥淥ur intention was to focus on whether AI can help human creativity,鈥� Doshi says. 鈥淭his was not a horse race between AI versus humans.鈥�
The results were judged by a group of 600 evaluators. They were asked to grade each story on its 鈥渘ovelty鈥� and 鈥渦sefulness.鈥� Novelty was a proxy for the story鈥檚 originality, while usefulness was a measure of whether the story was high enough quality to be published.
The results, in the journal Science Advances, found that stories written with AI help were deemed both more novel and useful. Writers who had access to one AI idea did better, but those who had access to five ideas saw the biggest boost 鈥� they wrote stories seen as around 8% more novel than humans on their own, and 9% more useful.
What鈥檚 more, Doshi says, the worst writers benefited the most.
鈥淭hose that were the least inherently creative, experienced the largest improvement in their creativity,鈥� he says.
So AI really does appear to make people more creative. But there鈥檚 a plot twist: When Hauser and Doshi looked at all the stories, they found a different effect.
鈥淐ollectively speaking, there was a smaller diversity of novelty in the group that had AI,鈥� Hauser says.
The social dilemma
In other words, the chatbot made each individual more creative, but it made the group that had AI help less creative.
Hauser describes the divergent result as a 鈥渃lassic social dilemma鈥� 鈥� a situation where people benefit individually, but the group suffers.
鈥淲e do worry that, at large scale, if many people are using this鈥� overall the diversity and creativity in the population will go down,鈥� he says
Annalee Newitz, , questions the findings. Trying to quantify whether a person is more creative is tricky: 鈥淚 think that part of creativity is that it can鈥檛 really be measured in percentages like that,鈥� Newitz says.
Nevertheless, when Newitz tried reproducing some of the AI story ideas themselves using the paper鈥檚 methods, they clearly saw how using AI would generate similar stories.
For example, when asked to produce story ideas for an 鈥渁dventure on the open seas,鈥� they found AI would often incorporate the clich茅d idea of finding treasure into the story. And it seemed to latch onto the phrase 鈥渢he real treasure was鈥︹�� 鈥� which is . Because AI is trained on a huge number of texts, Newitz says, it seems reasonable that it would draw from those frequently-used clich茅s first.
Newitz also says the social dilemma warned about in the study has already hit the sci-fi community. Last year the sci-fi magazine Clarkesworld because 鈥渢hey were flooded with AI-written stories.鈥�
In the end, Newitz says that they wouldn鈥檛 blame anyone who wanted to try using AI to write a story. But ultimately, they think these tools miss the point of writing.
Creative writing is 鈥渉umans communicating with other humans,鈥� Newitz says. 鈥淓ven if something is badly written 鈥� even if it鈥檚 not very creative 鈥� if it鈥檚 written by a human, then it鈥檚 fulfilling its purpose.鈥�
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