AI Boosts Individual Creativity But May Reduce Originality, Study Suggests

An experiment from researchers at University College London and University of Exeter found that AI like GPT-4 can help individuals, especially those with lower baseline creativity, write more creative short stories:

• Participants who initially scored lower on a creativity test saw the most significant gains in the rated creativity of their stories when using AI assistance.
• The more AI-generated story prompts these participants were given to choose from, the higher their stories ultimately scored.
• However, participants who were already highly creative did not benefit from AI and in some cases scored lower when using it.

Potential drawbacks; While AI boosted creativity scores for many individuals, the AI-assisted stories were more similar to each other overall, suggesting a risk of reduced originality at a collective level:

• If the publishing industry embraces more AI-generated or inspired stories, the researchers warn the stories could become less unique in aggregate.
• They noted: “While these results point to an increase in individual creativity, there is risk of losing collective novelty.”

Study details; Hundreds of participants were asked to write short stories of about eight sentences:

• One group wrote independently, while another could use GPT-4 to get a story idea and a few opening sentences. A third group was given up to five AI-generated story starters to choose from.
• Independent raters then scored the stories based on novelty, enjoyment, and perceived publishability.
• Participants’ baseline creativity was also assessed beforehand using a standard word-production task.

Broader implications; This study illuminates both the potential and the pitfalls of using AI as a creative aid for writing:

While AI can serve as a helpful tool to stimulate ideas and boost the rated creativity and quality of stories for many individuals, especially those who struggle with originality on their own, an over-reliance on AI assistance could lead to more derivative and homogeneous creative works overall. As AI story generation becomes more accessible and widely used, it will be important to balance the use of AI for creative inspiration with the development and expression of each writer’s unique voice, imagination, and perspectives. Further research is needed to understand how to leverage AI to enhance rather than dilute the diversity of human creative output.