ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CREATIVITY: IS AI REALLY CREATIVE?

Abstract

The field of Artificial Intelligence has been marked by great optimism about the possibility of not only a humanoid AI but also an ultra-intelligent AI that surpasses human intelligence and creativity. Attributes such as thinking, desire, and imagination -that were hitherto exclusive to humans and only metaphorically applicable to organic non-humans are today shown to be real attributes of non-organic, material Artificial Intelligence. Creativity is one of these attributes he optimism for computational creativity has been on the ascendance given the unprecedented quantum of breakthroughs that have continued to attend the field of Artificial Intelligence in recent times, making impressive overtures in the creative fields of music, designs, architecture, visual arts, literature, medicine, research, etc. It is increasingly begging the question of what it means to be a creator in an age of artificial creativity and what is the essential element of creativity. This is even more, especially today there is the preponderance of –machine learning specifically deep learning –which uses the layered structure of algorithms in the imitation of the neural structure of the human brain and whose ascendance has been given impetus to with access to the umbrage amount of computational power and digitized training data. The work is therefore set to respond to the question of whether machine creativity is really creative. It does this using the methods of analysis and hermeneutics by critically looking at the claims of computational creativity. In its philosophic engagement with the concept of creativity and the creative process in general, it discovers that creativity is a conscious intentional act that involves freedom and autonomy, intentionality and understanding, and imaginative thinking. Notwithstanding the controversies that surround many of these concepts, the research finds that these concepts can hardly be rooted in materialism which is the building block of Artificial Intelligence. It thus describes AI creativity in terms of an optimization, and augmentation, of existing human creativity.