How to study artificial creativity

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a novel approach to developing computational models of creativity that supports the multiple approaches to the study of artificial creative systems. The artificial creativity approach to the development of computational models of creative systems is described with reference to Csikszentmihalyi's systems view of creativity. Some interesting results from studies using an early implementation of an artificially creative system, The Digital Clockwork Muse, are presented. The different studies show how the artificial creativity approach supports the study of creativity from a variety of standpoints that mirror the disciplines that study human creativity. The use of artificial creativity allows these different studies to be conveniently conducted on the same computational model and integrated in to a more complete picture of the creative process. General Terms: Experimentation.

Designing creative artificial systems

“…This observation is consistent with the work of other researchers. Creative results are results that are similar to, yet different from, expected results (Gero, 1996;Saunders & Gero, 2002), and ideas that may first be viewed as " ridiculous, idiotic or outrageous" may be valued as " good" years later (Thomas et al, 2002).…”

“…Artificial learning systems are available for many tasks and many domains of application. In design, examples of such systems are knowledge-based agents (e.g., Grecu & Brown, 1996), machine learning systems (e.g., Duffy, 1997), clustering mechanisms (e.g., Reffat & Gero, 2000), neural networks (e.g., Saunders & Gero, 2002), and genetic algorithms (e.g., Gero, 1996;Cho, 2002).…”

Theory As a Case of Design: Lessons for Design from the Philosophy of Science

“…Methods such as genetic algorithms have been used to find new forms with functions much improved over previous humanly generated designs [42][43][44][45]. This work challenges our suppositions about the roots of creativity: is randomness and combination as important as expertise?…”

Computational Social Creativity

“…Drawing on the systems view of creativity introduced by Csikszentmihalyi [20], Saunders and Gero [65,66] implemented a computational model of social creativity using 'curious design agents' able to both generate novel artefacts and evaluate the novelty of artefacts generated by other agents. In this model, individuals produce novel artefacts and send those they determine to be significantly novel to other agents in the field for further evaluation.…”