Establishing the importance of co-creation and self-efficacy in creative collaboration with artificial intelligence.

Journal: Scientific reports
PMID:

Abstract

The emergence of generative AI technologies has led to an increasing number of people collaborating with AI to produce creative works. Across two experimental studies, in which we carefully designed and programmed state-of-the-art human-AI interfaces, we examine how the design of generative AI systems influences human creativity (poetry writing). First, we find that people were most creative when writing a poem on their own, compared to first receiving a poem generated by an AI system and using sophisticated tools to edit it (Study 1). Following this, we demonstrate that this creativity deficit dissipates when people co-create with-not edit-AI and establish creative self-efficacy as an important mechanism in this process (Study 2). Thus, our findings indicate that people must occupy the role of a co-creator, not an editor, to reap the benefits of generative AI in the production of creative works.

Authors

  • Jack McGuire
    Department of Management & Organizational Development, D'Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University, Hayden Hall, 101, 370 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. jo.mcguire@northeastern.edu.
  • David De Cremer
    Department of Management and Organization.
  • Tim Van de Cruys
    Linguistics Research Unit, Faculty of Arts, KU Leuven, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21, Box 3308, 3000, Leuven, Belgium.