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In-Depth Information
Chapter 6
On the Role of Computers
in Creativity-Support Systems
Bipin Indurkhya
Abstract
We report here on our experiences with designing computer-based
creativity-support systems over several years. In particular, we present the design
of three different systems incorporating different mechanisms of creativity. One of
them uses an idea proposed by Rodari to stimulate imagination of the children in
writing a picture-based story. The second one is aimed to model creativity in legal
reasoning, and the third one uses low-level perceptual similarities to stimulate cre-
ation of novel conceptual associations in unrelated pictures. We discuss lessons learnt
from these approaches, and address their implications for the question of how far
creativity can be tamed by algorithmic approaches.
6.1 Introduction
Even though the last few decades have seen a steady progress in the development of
computer systems that produce artifacts in the domain of visual art [
8
,
43
], music
[
7
,
40
,
44
], literature [
39
,
51
]; and so on, generally they have received a negative
press as regard to their creativity: computers cannot have emotions, programs do not
have intents, creativity cannot be algorithmic, and so on [
4
,
57
]. Even designers of
computational creativity systems seem to take an apologetic tone when it comes to
ascribing creativity to their systems. For example, Colton [
9
] argues that it is not
enough to generate an interesting or creative artifact, but one must also take into
account the process by which the artifact was generated. Krzeczkowska et al. [
38
]
took pains to project some notion of purpose in their painting tool so that it might be
perceived as creative. Such views blatantly expose the implicit assumptions underly-
ing creativity: namely that it crucially needs a creator with emotions, intentions, and
such. A consequence of this view is that creativity is considered an essentially human
trait, and cannot be ascribed to computer programs or AI systems (or to animals like
elephants and gorillas).
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