A monstrous matter: The three faces of artificial creativity

Abstract

Through a focus on artificial creativity (AC), creativity and innovation researchers, practitioners, and educators are beginning to demystify the phenomenon's liminality by exploring and contesting the potential affordances, constraints, and pitfalls brought about by the deployment of powerful AI models for creative endeavors. For the creativity community, AC as a sociotechnical network has become a deeply consternating and contested monster. Given the recency of AC, there has been little theorizing yet. My critical self-reflection paper seeks to understand the community's concerns and, thereby, to discern theoretical insights that conceptually contribute towards a theory of AC. Drawing on autoethnography, I identified three distinct perceived matters of concern represented by anthropomorphic personalities or faces of AC: Trickster, Surveyor, and Harbinger. The findings reveal that the Trickster is the most monstrous and disconcerting face of AC. It may be prankish or deceptive, but can also be beneficent and supportive. While the Surveyor provides surveillance, measurement, and calculation, the Harbinger announces competing future visions, one of utopian hope and the other of dystopian despair. I conclude by discussing the implications of three underlying theoretical variables: trust, creative value, and creative personal identity.