Recent advancements in generative artificial intelligence (AI) have demonstrated its potential in various creative activities, such as producing works of art, composing symphonies, and drafting legal texts or slide presentations. These developments have raised concerns about AI surpassing humans in creativity tasks and rendering knowledge workers obsolete. These concerns are highlighted in a recent Fortune article titled ‘Elon Musk says AI will create a future where ‘no job is needed’: ‘The AI will be able to do everything’.
In a new paper in a Nature Human Behavior special issue on AI, researcher Janet Rafner from Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies and Center for Hybrid Intelligence at Aarhus University, along with Prof. Jacob Sherson, Director of the Center for Hybrid Intelligence, and international collaborators, discuss the research and societal implications of creativity and AI.
The team of researchers argue that our focus should be on understanding and nurturing co-creativity, the interaction between humans and machines, towards what they term a ‘human-centered AI’ and ‘hybrid intelligence.’ This approach will allow us to develop interfaces that enable high degrees of AI-driven automation while maintaining human control, thus empowering both parties optimally.
Rafner comments: To date, most studies on human-AI co-creativity have come from the field of human-computer interaction and primarily focus on the abilities of AI, as well as interaction design and dynamics. While these advances are crucial for understanding the dynamics between humans, algorithms, and human attitudes towards the co-creative process and product, there is an urgent need to enrich these applications with insights about creativity gained from psychological sciences over the past few decades.
“Right now, we need to shift the conversation away from questions like ‘Can AI be creative?’ One reason is that defining creativity is not straightforward. When studying human-only, machine-only, and human-AI co-creativity, we must consider the type and level of creativity under scrutiny, ranging from everyday creative activities that can be easily automated by machines, such as making new recipes, artwork, or music, to paradigm-shifting contributions that require higher-level human intervention. Furthermore, it is more meaningful to explore nuanced questions like ‘What are the similarities and differences in human cognition, behavior, motivation, and self-efficacy between human-AI co-creativity and human creativity?'”, explains Rafner.
Currently, our understanding of co-creativity between human and machines is limited as the distinction between human and AI contributions (and processes) is not always clear. Moving forward, researchers should balance predictive accuracy with theoretical understanding (i.e., explainability) to develop intelligent systems that can both measure and enhance human creativity. When designing co-creative systems, such as virtual assistants, it will be crucial to balance psychometric rigor with ecological validity. This means combining precise psychological measurement with state-of-the-art, intuitive, and engaging interface design.
Interdisciplinary collaborations are necessary
The challenge of understanding and developing human-AI co-creative systems cannot be tackled by a single discipline alone. Business and management scholars should be involved to ensure that tasks adequately capture real-world professional challenges and to understand the implications of co-creativity for the future of work at macro and micro organizational scales, such as creativity in team dynamics with blended teams of humans and AI. Linguistics and learning scientists are needed to help us comprehend the impact and nuances of prompt engineering in text-to-x systems. Developmental psychologists will have to study the impact on human learning processes.
Ethical and meaningful developments
The team of researchers argue that it is not only more ethical to involve humans closely when working with and developing AI, but it is also the most efficient long-term choice in most cases.
In addition, ethics and legal scholars must consider the costs and benefits of co-creativity in terms of intellectual property rights, human sense of purpose, and environmental impact.
