HACKER Q&A
📣 amichail

If AI can be creative, does this mean humans can be taught creativity?


And if so, maybe universities should do that (e.g., as part of a CS degree)?


  👤 proc0 Accepted Answer ✓
Why would you think humans cannot be taught creativity? Ever heard of art schools? In fact, I would say all humans are creative to some extent. Everyone applies it differently, some are creative in the kitchen, others can tell funny jokes.

Additionally, current AI is arguably not creative, depending on the definition of "creative". If we mean the same type of creativity as humans, then certainly current AI is not really creating anything as much as it is encoding a gigantic set of training data into a program that takes an input and generates an output. The training data is directly correlated to the output of the AI model, unlike humans that have inherent creativity that comes from millions of years of evolution. That said, I do think AI will eventually have breakthroughs that will allow it to be truly creative. At that point I think AI models will behave like people, they will have real time learning, and will be able to improvise in any situation like humans do. We may not be far away from that, but I don't think current LLMs are there yet.


👤 CharlesW
To quote GPT-4, "AI's 'creativity' is more about remixing and reinterpreting the information it has been fed".

I think the degree to which a person perceives human-like creativity from AI/LLMs is inversely proportional to their understanding of how they work. Here's a great video that can help demystify GPTs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjZofJX0v4M


👤 stemlord
I do think creativity can be taught, and that it involves instilling values that enforce iterative making and experimentation to achieve results that are both novel (originality) and deliberately targeted (craftsmanship).