Can AI Emulate Human Creativity?

If you work out of an office, you know that the coffee machine is the favorite spot in the office to hang out or have conversations at. From giving us the first cup of the day to keeping us awake for late-night meetings, that machine is a lifesaver. But just for a day, try not getting your coffee from the coffee machine. Don’t skip coffee entirely, but instead, go out to your local coffee shop that doesn’t use coffee machines or make yourself a flask at home.

You will realize that hand-made coffee is inherently better than the one that is made from a machine. Not just making coffee, but highly creative jobs—like designing an outfit or writing a book—are considered best left to human creators. Many do not think that machines could emulate them. But with the takeover of artificial intelligence, this belief is steadily being challenged. Creativity and AI are together transforming many spaces that were traditionally reserved for the “artists.” In this article, we’ll be exploring these spaces and how AI is making a significant impact on them.

Creativity and AI Are Literally Changing the World

When you think “creative,” the first things that come to mind are music, poetry and novels. The best works in these three areas of art have been the results of human imagination and innovation. Every significant progress in these fields has challenged traditional ways of creating art and presented a new side to human creativity. For example, there was a time when classical music was considered to be the peak of musical art, but today, we see hip-hop and K-pop taking over the world, their styles and structures very different from classical music.

Poetry and prose, too, have seen similar shifts, especially in the ways they engage with people. Writers today are keen on connecting with the readers by using language that is relatable to them. Young kids would rather read a short story written by a Gen-Z influencer than Shakespeare or Milton, which they would struggle to understand.

So where does AI come in? What we know about artificial intelligence is that it functions on the basis of data. AI already knows the language that we speak and has the keywords that engage us. But does AI have the creativity to use this data and create a piece of content? Studies suggest that it indeed does! Back in 2011, the literary journal of Duke University published a poem that was created with the help of an AI program. An undergrad student at the university had modified the program that auto-generated the poem with stanzas, phrases and various other poetic elements. The editors of the journal were not aware of its creation as it was indistinguishable from poetry written by a real person. In the years to come, there were more such attempts to create works of art using AI. In 2016, Google reported that its machine learning system wrote a song. The Magenta program was attempting to create music and wrote a 90-minute piano melody through a neural network that was provided with only four notes. In the same year, a Japanese AI program wrote a novel that even passed the first round of screening for a national literary prize. While the novel eventually lost out to a human creation, the fact that it could even compete in the same category tells us that AI is becoming more creative. It is only a matter of time before AI will write songs, poems and novels that become more mainstream. […]

Creativity and AI Are Literally Changing the World

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