New Studies Reveal Contrasting Impacts of AI on Creativity in Writing: Enhancing Individual Creativity, Yet Reducing Collective Diversity and Raising Copyright Concerns
AI enhances individual creativity but reduces collective diversity in generating novel story ideas.
First study used Divergent Association Task (DAT) and language models to evaluate writing quality and found AI assistance boosts novelty and usefulness.
Less creatively inclined individuals saw improvements with AI-generated ideas, but overall group creativity decreased due to similarity.
Second study discovered some authors' works were used without consent or compensation for generative AI models in book publishing industry, leading to copyright infringement lawsuits against Microsoft and OpenAI.
In recent studies, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in creative writing has been a topic of interest. Two separate studies published in the Science Advances journal reveal contrasting findings on the impact of AI on creativity. The first study, conducted by researchers from the University of Exeter and UCL School of Management, found that AI enhances individual creativity but reduces collective diversity when it comes to generating novel story ideas.
According to this research, less creatively inclined individuals saw significant improvements when given AI-generated story ideas. However, the overall creativity level for the group as a whole decreased due to the similarity of these generated ideas. The researchers used a Divergent Association Task (DAT) and language models to evaluate writing quality and found that AI assistance boosts novelty and usefulness, making stories more enjoyable and less boring.
The second study, conducted by Anil Doshi and Oliver Hauser from the University of Exeter, focused on the use of generative AI in creative industries like book publishing. They discovered that some authors' works were used without their consent or compensation to train generative AI models. This led to a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI for copyright infringement.
Despite these findings, it is important to note that the use of AI in creative writing is still a developing field, and further research is needed to fully understand its implications. It's crucial for creators to be aware of potential risks and take steps to protect their intellectual property.
A study in the journal Science Advances finds that AI enhances creativity by boosting the novelty and usefulness of story ideas.
AI improves stories by making them more enjoyable, with better plot twists, and less boring.
Using AI for story inspiration resulted in a loss of collective novelty as the assisted stories were found to be more similar to each other.
Accuracy
Access to up to five AI-generated ideas led to higher scores for emotional characteristics, such as better writing, enjoyability, and humor.
Deception
(100%)
None Found At Time Of
Publication
Fallacies
(95%)
No formal fallacies found. The author does not make any inflammatory rhetoric or appeal to authority. There are no dichotomous depictions in the text. However, the article reports on a study with findings that may be seen as surprising or counterintuitive (AI can enhance creativity but reduce collective novelty). This is a common type of informal fallacy known as 'surprising fact', which relies on readers being impressed by the novelty or counterintuitiveness of the finding rather than a rigorous analysis of the study's results. The article also presents only one side of the story, focusing solely on the positive aspects of AI-assisted writing without discussing potential drawbacks or negative consequences beyond a cautionary note from the researchers. This can be seen as an oversimplification and may lead to an imbalanced view of the issue.
AI "professionalizes" stories, making them more enjoyable, more likely to have plot twists, better written and less boring.
The study found that AI helped less creatively inclined people write more original stories but dampened creativity for the group as a whole.
People with lower creativity scores saw significant improvements when given AI-generated story ideas.
Accuracy
Writers with lower creativity scores saw significant improvements when given AI-generated story ideas.
Stories written with AI assistance were more similar and less varied compared to those without AI.
Deception
(70%)
The author makes editorializing statements and uses emotional manipulation in this article. He states that the study's findings 'confirm the feeling many have expressed' and 'seems to confirm'. These statements are not factual and are an attempt to elicit an emotional response from the reader. The author also uses phrases like 'huge potential', 'huge hype', and 'big impacts' which can be seen as sensationalizing the topic. Additionally, there is selective reporting of data in the article, as the author focuses on the negative impact of AI on creativity for those with high creativity scores while glossing over the positive impact for those with low creativity scores.
There is huge potential (and, no doubt, huge hype) for this technology to have big impacts in media and creativity more generally...
The study represents an early view on a very big question...it seems to confirm...
Fallacies
(85%)
The author makes an appeal to authority when quoting Hauser's statements about the potential impact of AI on creativity and the importance of evaluating it rigorously. He also uses inflammatory rhetoric by stating that 'it echoes the fear in visual art and in web content that if the AI leads to more AI, and what it trains on is just more of itself, it could end up in a self-perpetuating cycle of blandness.'
'It represents an early view on a very big question on how large language models and generative AI more generally will affect human activities, including creativity,' Hauser told TechCrunch in an email. ', Ideally, our study helps guide both the technology and how we interact with it to ensure continued diversity of creative ideas, whether it is in writing, or art, or music.'
'it echoes the fear in visual art and in web content that if the AI leads to more AI, and what it trains on is just more of itself, it could end up in a self-perpetuating cycle of blandness.'
AI makes stories more creative, engaging, and well-written for less creative writers.
Researchers warn that widespread use of AI may reduce diversity and uniqueness of creative works.
Accuracy
Study found that AI-assisted stories were more enjoyable, better written, less boring for target audience of young adults.
Writers with low creativity scores saw greater increase in creativity when using up to five AI-generated ideas.
Participants wrote very short stories on any topic and were evaluated based on novelty, usefulness, and emotional enjoyment.
Deception
(50%)
The article makes several statements that could be considered deceptive or misleading. First, the title and body of the article suggest that AI is enhancing creativity in writing, but the study only found that AI helped less creative writers produce better stories. The study did not find that AI enhanced creativity for more creative writers. Additionally, while the article states that 'stories written with AI assistance have been deemed to be more creative, better written and more enjoyable', it does not provide any evidence or citations to support this claim. Furthermore, the article warns of the risks of using AI in creative writing reducing diversity and uniqueness of creative works but fails to provide any evidence or citations for this claim as well.
Stories written with AI assistance have been deemed to be more creative, better written and more enjoyable.
The research found that AI assistance boosts novelty and usefulness, making stories more enjoyable and less boring.
However, it also warns that the widespread use of AI may reduce the diversity and uniqueness of creative works.
Last September, some authors discovered that their works were part of a dataset used to train generative AI models without their consent or compensation.
Authors filed a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI in September 2023 for copyright infringement related to the use of their works in generative AI models.
The future of book publishing and creative industries may depend on a judge’s interpretation of ‘fair use.’
Accuracy
The Books3 dataset contained nearly 200,000 books and took decades of work to create.
Large language models have been in development since 2017, with OpenAI’s GPT-3 being introduced in 2020.
Deception
(100%)
None Found At Time Of
Publication
Fallacies
(90%)
The article discusses the ongoing legal battle between authors and tech companies over the use of their work to train AI models without consent or compensation. While it does not directly commit any formal fallacies, it does present a dichotomous depiction of the situation by framing it as a battle for 'the lucrative future' versus 'the bitter end' of book publishing. Additionally, there is an appeal to authority when citing Douglas Preston and his opinion on the matter. Inflammatory rhetoric is also present in phrases like 'potentially the biggest rip-off in creative history'.
]“I get hung up on the word scraping,” author R.O. Kwon says. “It sounds quite violent.”
The years of work on those books added up: 10 years for one novel, 20 for a memoir, multiplied by the nearly 200,000 books found in the dataset.
Douglas Preston, a best-selling author and one of the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit filed after the initial outrage: “It’s potentially the biggest rip-off in creative history.”
OpenAI and Microsoft, for their part, deny allegations that they infringed any copyrights. The tech companies claim that training their models on copyrighted content is equivalent to a person reading books to improve their own writing.
Researchers found that AI can increase the creativity of individual writers.
Writers who had access to five AI ideas saw the biggest boost in creativity.
Accuracy
AI can produce stories that are similar in nature.
Deception
(30%)
The article makes editorializing statements and uses emotional manipulation by implying that the use of AI in writing is a 'social dilemma' that could lead to a decrease in creativity for society as a whole. The author also engages in selective reporting by focusing on the potential negative consequences of using AI, while downplaying its benefits.
Can an AI chatbot make a person more creative? Supporters of artificial intelligence say it can serve as a muse, but critics doubt it … they say that it does little more than remix existing work.
So AI really does appear to make people more creative. But there’s a plot twist: When Hauser and Doshi looked at all the stories, they found a different effect. Collectively speaking, there was a smaller diversity of novelty in the group that had AI.
New ideas Questions have swirled around the use of AI in art since large language models (also known as LLMs) burst on the scene almost two years ago. Companies such as OpenAI have touted their products as tools that artists could use to increase their output.
For example, when asked to produce story ideas for an ‘adventure on the open seas’, they found AI would often incorporate the clichéd idea of finding treasure into the story.
Fallacies
(85%)
The author commits the following fallacies: 1. Hasty Generalization: The author makes a sweeping statement about AI decreasing creativity in society based on the findings of one study. 2. False Dilemma: The author presents a dichotomy between AI being a muse or doing little more than remixing existing work, ignoring other possibilities.
Can an AI chatbot make a person more creative? Supporters of artificial intelligence say it can serve as a muse, but critics doubt it
AI might be able to help a person become more creative, but it risks decreasing creativity in society overall.
