The Creativity Paradox: The Rise of Computational Creativity versus Human Ingenuity

“The difference between greater and lesser creativity lies not in how you solve problems, but rather in what problems you choose to solve” (Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi, 1976).

I have been one of those lucky ones who had the privilege to gain access to the beta version of DALL·E 2, a ‘text-to-image generator’ from OpenAI. DALL·E 2 is an AI system that creates realistic original images that never existed before using natural language processing. It takes the information from a text prompt and converts it into a variety of images using pre-trained models. Leveraging deep learning DALL·E 2 is positioned to unleash creativity in various forms. Still long way to go but the progress is simply fascinating, and I cannot wait for what is to come next.

This got me thinking about human creativity and its boundaries and the rise in computational and AI led creativity. The notion of human creativity is unmatchable by AI and robots still holds true today but for how long. The pace and velocity of developments in cognitive AI, deep learning, and synthetic AI along with the recent developments in multilingual language models (MLLs) are truly astonishing, and they will certainly push us to rethink the definition of AI creativity and its boundaries to new heights. It is not about replacing human creativity completely per se, conversely it is about open-up human creativity and imagination to new possibilities by leveraging technology in novel and unexpected ways.