Does AI Enhance or Limit Human Creativity? Exploring the Neuroscience of Innovation

With the rise of digital tools, researchers are reconsidering the standard definition of creativity. Because general creativity is thought to require originality and effectiveness, which encompasses digital creativity with artificial models like ChatGPT, it has been suggested that  the definition of natural human creativity should also highlight the internal processes of intentionality and satisfaction. These processes can be attributed to neurological complexity, including idea generation from the default mode network and the evaluative and goal-directed behavior from the executive control network. With these distinctions, human creativity seems to depend heavily on the conscious perception of the inner experience, which is currently not yet possible from today’s AI models. 

Humans have historically depended on external tools to support and enhance creativity, such as physical mediums, but some argue that using AI as a tool may replace or overtake the interal creative processes and diminish creative skills and authenticity. AI is potentially more disruptive to creativity in those who have not had a chance to independently develop creative skills and who rely heavily on cognitive offloading or outsourcing. Consequentially, the essential novelty of creativity may be collectively stifled in the future. A recent study shows that when using ChatGPT, participants produced less semantically distinct ideas and less collective diversity of creative output. Although AI may support creativity by streamlining certain elements of creative work, becoming reliant on AI for human creativity could be detrimental to our overall internal processes and experiences to generate creative ideas, skills, and unique outputs. 

Sources: 

Aru, J. (2025). Artificial intelligence and the internal processes of creativity. The Journal of Creative Behavior.