CreAItive Futures: What Becomes of Creativity in the Age of AI?

Generative AI is rapidly changing how people create, learn, and express themselves. From writing and design to scientific discovery and artistic production, AI is entering domains once thought of as uniquely human. As they do, they challenge our understanding of creativity as such: not only how it is practiced today and will be in the future but also what it means and why it matters.  

This Theme explores creativity as something that emerges in practice – through thinking, collaboration, and the contexts in which people work. Creativity does not happen in isolation. It develops through social interactions and is influenced by institutions and cultural norms, all of which are likely being transformed by AI. 

To understand these developments, the Theme brings together perspectives from fields such as philosophy, law, cultural studies, engineering, neuroscience, and the arts. By working across disciplines, the team explores how AI changes the conditions for creative work across different domains and levels, from individual practices to broader social, cultural, and institutional contexts. 

There is also a growing tension in how creativity is understood and valued. On the one hand, creativity is a way of expressing meaning, identity, and lived experience. On the other, it is seen as a tool to increase efficiency and a driver for innovation. Generative AI appears to intensify this tension. While it can accelerate creative work and increase productivity, it also raises important, if not existential, questions about authorship, originality, and the nature and value of creative expression. 

The Theme’s work is guided by three core questions:

• How does the use of generative AI affect the interplay between cognitive and social processes in creativity?
• How do cultural, institutional, and technological contexts shape—and are shaped by—the integration of AI into creative practices?
• And how does AI reshape the balance between creativity as a tool for efficiency and creativity as a form of human expression? 

A key part of the work is to explore and experience these developments in practice. The Theme will experiment with its own creative processes – sometimes using AI tools and sometimes deliberately avoiding them – to better understand how these technologies influence thinking, collaborations, and creative outcomes. By reflecting on their own experiences, the Theme not only uses creativity as an object of analysis but also as a way of investigating how AI may transform creative processes and practices.