I think creativity can be defined as something that is novel, useful, interesting, and meaningful. I generally agree with Bhatia’s definition (from the Ghibli article), which describes creativity as novel and useful, but I would expand it to include interest and meaning. I include “interesting” because when people describe something as creative, they are usually also describing it as engaging or intriguing. I add “meaningful” because as the article emphasizes, there is an important shift from focusing on what is created to why it is created, especially in an era where AI can easily generate content. For something to be truly creative, it must matter both to the creator and to others. Ultimately, creativity is not just about producing something new or useful, but about the story, intention, and purpose behind it which are qualities that AI does not possess.
With this in mind, the LLM’s response to our prompt (to write a poem in the style of Shel Silverstein) was the following:
The 9-to-5-a-saurus has a tie around its neck,
It lives on bitter coffee and a monthly little check.
It doesn’t have a tail, but it has a rolling chair,
And a very frantic look beneath its thinning, grayish hair.
For me, it is difficult to find this poem interesting, although I recognize that my judgment may be biased because I know it was generated by AI. The poem does include rhyme and a funny concept (“9-to-5-a-saurus”), but these elements are derived from patterns found in existing poems. As we learned in class, LLMs generate text by predicting likely word sequences rather than creating from lived experience. It is also not genuinely novel since it is built from existing material, and it is not meaningful in the human sense. AI lacks emotions, experiences, and personal perspectives that give creative work its depth and significance. As the Bhatia article highlights, creativity depends heavily on the “why” behind a work. In this case, there is no underlying intention or lived motivation, but only statistical pattern generation. Without emotions, experiences, etc. the output lacks true meaning.
This experiment made me reflect more deeply on what it means for something to be creative. While creativity remains somewhat subjective, the rapid development of AI has clarified its essential qualities. Creativity involves not only novelty and usefulness, but also meaning and genuine interest which are qualities that stem from human experience. While the invention of AI and LLMs themselves can be considered creative achievements, the outputs they generate do not embody creativity in the same way because they lack the human context that gives creative work its purpose and significance.
Source: The artifact isn’t the art: Rethinking creativity in the age of AI
