A recent study reveals that AI can boost creativity by increasing the originality of story concepts and the effectiveness of storytelling, in terms of engaging the intended audience and the potential for publication. However, the study notes that while AI can enhance individual creativity, it might lead to a reduction in collective novelty as AI-assisted stories tend to exhibit more similarities to each other, resulting in less diversity.
Stories created with AI assistance are seen as more imaginative, well-crafted, and captivating.
A study published in the journal Science Advances suggests that AI enhances creativity by enhancing the novelty and utility of stories. It “professionalizes” stories, making them more engaging, more likely to have unexpected plot twists, better written, and less monotonous.
Research involving 300 participants tasked with crafting a short, eight-sentence ‘micro story’ for young adults found that AI helped less creative individuals produce work that was up to 26.6% better written and 15.2% less monotonous.
However, AI did not significantly improve the work of more creative writers. The study also warns that while AI may boost individual creativity, it could potentially lead to a decrease in collective innovation, with AI-assisted stories showing more similarities and less diversity.
The study’s researchers, from the University of Exeter Business School, Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, and UCL School of Management, divided the 300 participants into three groups: one without AI assistance, another using ChatGPT for a starting idea, and a third group choosing from up to five AI-generated ideas.
Afterwards, 600 individuals were enlisted to evaluate the stories based on their novelty – whether they introduced something new or unexpected – and ‘usefulness’ – relevance to the target audience, potential for further development, and publication suitability.
The writers with the most AI support had higher creativity scores, with their stories scoring 8.1% higher in novelty and 9% higher in usefulness compared to those without AI.
Writers using AI-generated ideas also exhibited enhanced emotional characteristics, producing stories that were better written, more engaging, less monotonous, and funnier.
The researchers assessed the writers’ inherent creativity using a Divergent Association Task (DAT) and found that more creative writers benefited less from AI-generated ideas. In contrast, less creative writers experienced a greater increase in creativity, with their stories showing improvements in novelty, usefulness, writing quality, enjoyment, and reduced boredom.
These advancements brought less creative writers on par with highly creative ones, balancing creativity levels across different writers.
The researchers also analyzed the stories’ similarity to each other using OpenAI’s application programming interface (API). They observed a 10.7% rise in similarity among writers who used a single AI-generated idea compared to those who did not use AI.
Oliver Hauser, a Professor of Economics at the University of Exeter Business School and Deputy Director of the Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, stated: “This study is a starting point in exploring how generative AI impacts human creativity.”
“Our findings shed light on how generative AI can enhance creativity and level the playing field regardless of the writers’ inherent creativity levels,” Hauser added.
Anil Doshi, Assistant Professor at UCL School of Management, cautioned: “While these results indicate a rise in individual creativity, there is a risk of diminishing collective novelty. If the publishing industry adopts more generative AI-inspired narratives, stories may become less distinct collectively and more alike.”
Professor Hauser warned: “This potential downward trend resembles an emerging social predicament: if individual writers perceive their AI-inspired writing as more creative, they may be inclined to use generative AI more frequently in the future, potentially diminishing the overall novelty of stories further.
“In essence, our findings suggest that despite the positive impact of generative AI on individual creativity, there are cautionary implications if generative AI becomes more prevalent in creative endeavors.”
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