Artificial intelligence (AI) was designed to solve problems, enhance productivity, and push the boundaries of innovation. But since the rise of generative AI such as CHATGPT and DALL-E, people have had concerns about its potential to overshadow or replace key human skills.
Now, University of South Australia researchers have explored the complex relationship between AI and human creativity finding that while AI can generate creative outputs, it fundamentally relies on human intervention.
It's a valuable finding that has significant implications for educational practices, job creation, and the future of work. And a relief for those concerned about AI rivalling human jobs.
Yet it raises issues for employers and educators who need to better understand these disruptive technologies to enable their staff and students to meet their full potential.
Generative AI technologies continue to expand, but the most popular are ChatGPT (the AI 'wordsmith') and DALL-E (the AI 'artist') which respectively produce swathes of human-sounding text, or instantly credible artwork at the simple press of a button. Recently, the two have been joined by their Chinese counterpart, DeepSeek.
UniSA researcher Professor David Cropley says learning how AI can augment human skills is key to successfully adopting it.
"The future of work suggests that machines - AI, automation, and robots - will take over routine, algorithmic, predictable tasks, freeing up people to focus on unpredictable, non-algorithmic, and creative work," Prof Cropley says.
"However, if AI is capable of creativity, then this premise breaks down, and the future of work for humans is far less certain.
"In our research we explored the relationship between AI and humans, finding that generative AI is not a replacement for human skills like creativity, but rather a supplement or a tool that we will need to manage.
"It's easy to understand through an example: if I prompt an AI art program like DALL-E2 to 'produce an oil painting in the style of da Vinci's Mona Lisa, showing a young woman scrolling through her mobile phone and looking bored', it will create a picture, and does a good job of satisfying that prompt.
"But this does not mean that the AI is creative. Yes, the resulting picture is novel and effective, but it's not because AI had any special ability, but because I produced a creative prompt. The only thing the AI really did was save me the trouble of learning how to paint."
In Australia, the use of generative AI is rapidly growing with nearly 40% of employees using the technology for work purposes, and one in five doubling their use over the past year. Only 20% of employees believe their business is taking full advantage of generative AI.
UniSA researcher Dr Rebecca Marrone says more research is needed to understand how AI can best support human skills.
"A few years back there were wild claims that AI was truly creative and could rival the best human skills. But we're starting to see a more moderate and reasoned point of view," Dr Marrone says.
"AI's strengths lie in speeding up information-gathering and evaluating ideas based on predefined criteria. It swiftly handles routine and data-intensive tasks, and this lets people to engage more deeply with creative processes.
"There's no doubt that generative AI is very impressive, but whatever you generate - and the key word here is 'you' - it's dependent on what you tell the AI to deliver.
"AI does not operate independently; it's literally prompted by a person, and we need to remember that."
