Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 14
Generative and Adaptive Creativity: A Unified
Approach to Creativity in Nature, Humans
and Machines
Oliver Bown
Abstract Computational creativity is not limited to the study of human-like creativ-
ity and forces us to think about creativity as a general process that can be applied
wherever new things come into existence. In this chapter I propose that in order to
unify various forms of creativity it is necessary to consider a distinction between two
types of creativity: generative creativity, in which things are created as the result of a
process regardless of their value, and adaptive creativity, in which things are created
as adaptive responses by a system to its situation. Whilst individual human creativ-
ity is typically of the adaptive form, collectively humans are engaged in processes
of generative creativity as well as adaptive creativity. It is helpful to understand hu-
man creative behaviour as part of a social process involving these two aspects, and
this is relevant to understanding how manmade artefacts can act as creative agents
in social networks.
14.1 Questions About Creativity
Theories of creativity are so commonly focused on human behaviour that for many
researchers there is no need to address notions of creativity outside of the frame of
reference of human psychology. In the disciplines centred around psychology this
is appropriate. As part of the cognitive sciences, it is also reasonable for artificial
intelligence (AI) to stick to this delimitation of creativity as an activity. The study
of computational creativity, as demonstrated by the range of contributions to this
topic, is very different in that it poses scenarios which provoke us to view creativity
in significantly more varied terms—scenarios, for example, where the computer acts
as a generator of variation, heavily mediated by its user.
To this end, human psychology is a limited reference point. Computational cre-
ativity is the study of creativity by any computational means, not necessarily those
modelled on human minds, or even on human goals, and as such the discipline takes
on the challenge of developing a more fundamental understanding of what it means
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search