When we say something is creative, what do we really mean?
Creativity is often treated as a spark — an inexplicable flash of inspiration that separates the artist from the imitator, the innovator from the follower. Yet, when we look closely, definitions of creativity are more contested than they first appear.
At its simplest, creativity is the ability to produce something new. But “newness” alone isn’t enough. Random noise is technically new, but not meaningful. So most accounts of creativity fold in two further criteria: that what is created must also be valuable and appropriate in context.
Human Perspectives on Creativity
- Aristotle described art as mimesis — imitation of life. In his account, creativity refines, distils, and re-presents reality rather than conjuring something out of nothing.
- Kant framed creativity in terms of genius: the capacity to generate rules rather than merely follow them, shaping culture instead of reproducing it.
- Cognitive science often models creativity as recombination — drawing from memory, patterns, and experience to assemble ideas in new ways.
Across these traditions, a common theme emerges: creativity is less about a solitary “lightning bolt” and more about how ideas are selected, shaped, and valued within a culture.
What Does This Mean for AI?
- If creativity is recombination, then AI qualifies. It rearranges patterns in ways humans may not anticipate.
- If creativity requires authorship and intention, AI falls short. It does not mean what it produces, nor does it set out with goals of self-expression.
- If creativity is social recognition, AI art may count — not because of what the system “is”, but because humans value its outputs as such.
Why It Matters
- For artists: does AI challenge or diminish the dignity of creative labour?
- For society: do we risk flattening culture by flooding it with low-cost imitation?
- For AI itself: should we treat these systems as collaborators, or simply as tools?
In the end, to ask what is creativity is to ask what we, as humans, value in the act of making. AI doesn’t settle the debate — it intensifies it.