One-size-fits-all? Study reveals creativity limits of AI text robots
Artificial intelligence can increase the creativity of individual stories. However, when used multiple times, it leads to less varied content, as a British study shows.
14.07.2024, 06:17
16.07.2024, 15:16
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- A British study shows that AI increases the creativity of individuals but reduces the diversity of collective content.
- Stories written with AI support are considered more creative and useful, but are more similar than those without AI.
- Despite the benefits for individual creativity, researchers warn of a potential downward spiral of collective originality with increased AI use.
AI can generate good story ideas for stories that are perceived as novel and useful by the audience, according to a scientific study published in the journal "Science Advances". According to the study, however, AI-supported stories are more similar to each other and less diverse than works written without AI support.
The study was conducted at the University of Exeter Business School, the Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in Exeter and the UCL School of Management in London.
In the first phase, the researchers divided 300 test subjects into three groups: The first group wrote without AI help, the second used ChatGPT with the latest language model 4.o for a starting idea, the third group selected from up to five AI-generated ideas. These were short stories for young adults.
AI writes elegantly
In a second phase of the study, 600 people rated the quality of the stories according to novelty or creativity and usefulness. The results showed that authors with access to AI achieved 8.1 percent higher creativity and 9 percent higher usefulness than the control group without the use of AI. Authors who had rated themselves as less creative particularly benefited from the AI support: their stories were then rated by the audience as up to 26.6 percent more elegantly written and 15.2 percent less boring.
The texts from the chat robot ChatGPT were therefore able to help less creative writers. However, the creativity of ChatGPT wears off quickly because the computer-generated stories are more similar to each other than texts formulated purely by humans. The researchers found that the similarity between the stories of authors who used AI increased by 10.7 percent.
Creativity in a downward spiral?
Professor Oliver Hauser from the University of Exeter Business School explained: "Our findings show how generative AI can boost creativity, but also that it could reduce collective novelty." Hauser spoke of a "downward spiral" that could lead to a social dilemma. "If individual authors find out that their writing inspired by generative AI is judged to be more creative, they have an incentive to use more generative AI in the future." However, this could further reduce the collective novelty of stories.
"Our results suggest that despite the enhancement effect that generative AI had on individual creativity, caution may be warranted if generative AI were to be used on a larger scale for creative tasks."
Anil Doshi from the UCL School of Management added: "If the publishing industry adopts more generative AI-inspired stories, they could become less unique and more similar overall."
