A new word! (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 163)

We need a new word!

A word for when something is perceived to be creative, even when it was not created.

Let’s call it “P2BC”.

Creative means something that is “relating to or involving the use of the imagination or original ideas to create something.”

But with the new generative AI solutions like ChatGPT and Midjourney, we are now seeing people reacting to work as IF (!) they were created by a human. They are perceived as being creative, but they actually are not.

Now, you could argue that the person who wrote the prompt for these AI engines did the creative work, but it is my experience that often the result that comes out of the engine is different – and often better! – than what I thought when I wrote the prompt.

And we usually would give creative credit to the person who created an image, not the person who wrote the brief anyway. (And even if we do assign creative skills to the person who wrote the brief, we would ALSO assign creative skills to the person who created the work based on that brief. Often assign MORE creative skills to the one who created the work.)

When people see a beautiful photo made entirely by an AI and react as IF it was a creative work, that triggers the same positive emotions as if it was actually created by a human. But it was not a creative work, at least not in the traditional meaning of the word.

So we need a new word to differentiate the two creations.

Think of how very well produced artificial flowers can give the perception in people that they are looking at real flowers. They are not, but they feel like they are.

And in the same way, a photograph or a poem created by an AI can be perceived as a creative work, even when they are not.

So they are not creative.

They are just Perceived to be Creative – They are P2BC…

Thoughts?

Brief to the Midjourney Ai: “thousands of human beings of all races standing clsoe to each other to create a world map.” (Yes, I even spelled it wrong…)