[Insight & Opinion] Let's Harness, Not Hinder, AI's Creativity

The Dichotomous Question Has Lost Its Meaning
Creativity Education Utilizing AI Is Needed

In the era of artificial intelligence (AI), I asked ChatGPT what the most essential competencies for humans are. It responded with five: creativity and problem-solving skills, emotional and human interaction, ethical judgment and social responsibility, continuous learning and skill enhancement, and flexibility and adaptability.

I then asked how creative AI thinks it is compared to humans. It replied that AI can exhibit some creativity but still has limitations compared to humans. While AI produces creative outcomes based on existing data, humans create creative results also based on imagination and intuition. This felt like a rather restrained answer from AI.

So far, many have said that although AI might surpass humans in terms of intelligence, humans have the advantage in creativity. However, judging from ChatGPT’s answer above, creativity might just be a matter of time. Even imagination and intuition, which seem to be uniquely human abilities, could be datafied, enabling AI to utilize human imagination and intuition to create even more creative works.

“Who is more creative, humans or ChatGPT?” This was a question posed by Professor Lynn Baus Sperry of California State University at the annual meeting of the American Management Association held in early August. She then showed AI-generated new slogans compared to existing slogans of famous American companies like Apple, Amazon, and Disney. For example, Disney’s original slogan is “Where Dreams Come True,” but AI suggested “The Magic Lives Here.”

The audience’s reactions were mixed. AI-generated corporate slogans were sufficiently creative and appealing. “We have entered an era where human and AI creativity are indistinguishable. Now, corporate success depends on how well AI is utilized,” was the conclusion drawn by Professor Sperry, who posed the question.

Yoon Song-yi, Chief Strategy Officer of NCSoft, also recently said at a conference, “In the AI era where human creativity is threatened, what is most needed is also human creativity.” The dichotomous question, “Who is more creative, humans or AI?” has now largely lost its meaning. However, embedded in this question is the important implication that AI can be as creative as humans. It implicitly suggests that as data grows and technology advances, AI may soon become more creative than humans.

Therefore, what we need to do becomes clear. Instead of being obsessed with whether humans or AI are more creative, we should leverage AI’s creativity to help humans become more creative. Rather than fearing or resisting AI’s creativity as a threat to human creativity, we should actively utilize such a threatening AI creativity. This is the right future response strategy for individuals and companies living in the AI revolution era, where creativity is increasingly essential.

The same applies to education. Korea has long advocated creativity education, but it has been minimal in practice due to the priority of exam preparation. Now, everyone feels that it is difficult to navigate the AI era with knowledge alone without creativity. We should use this social atmosphere to start creativity education in earnest. And even in creativity education, AI’s creativity should be actively utilized.

Kim Hyun-gon, Director of the National Assembly Future Institute