The current state of artificial intelligence generative language models is more creative than humans on divergent thinking tasks

Abstract

The emergence of publicly accessible artificial intelligence (AI) large language models such as ChatGPT has given rise to global conversations on the implications of AI capabilities. Emergent research on AI has challenged the assumption that creative potential is a uniquely human trait thus, there seems to be a disconnect between human perception versus what AI is objectively capable of creating. Here, we aimed to assess the creative potential of humans in comparison to AI. In the present study, human participants (N = 151) and GPT-4 provided responses for the Alternative Uses Task, Consequences Task, and Divergent Associations Task. We found that AI was robustly more creative along each divergent thinking measurement in comparison to the human counterparts. Specifically, when controlling for fluency of responses, AI was more original and elaborate. The present findings suggest that the current state of AI language models demonstrate higher creative potential than human respondents.