New research conducted by the University of Montana suggests that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is capable of achieving the same level of creativity as the top 1% of human thinkers. The study was led by Dr. Erik Guzik, an assistant clinical professor in the College of Business at UM.
The researchers used the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), a well-established tool for evaluating human creativity. They submitted eight responses generated by ChatGPT, an AI-powered application fueled by the GPT-4 AI engine. Additionally, they collected answers from a control group consisting of 24 students taking Guzik’s entrepreneurship and personal finance classes.
Comparison of the submissions with those of 2,700 college students nationwide who took the TTCT in 2016 revealed that ChatGPT performed exceptionally well in terms of fluency and originality. It was ranked in the top percentile for generating a large volume of ideas and for producing new and innovative concepts. However, its performance in flexibility, the ability to generate diverse ideas across various categories, slightly dropped to the 97th percentile.
Dr. Guzik expressed satisfaction over the fact that some of his own students achieved top 1% performance as well. Nevertheless, ChatGPT outperformed the majority of college students in the nation.
The researchers also presented their findings at the Southern Oregon University Creativity Conference, where they emphasized the need for more sophisticated assessment tools that can differentiate between human and AI-generated ideas. The AI’s success on the TTCT test, according to Guzik, suggests that there is still much to understand about human creativity.
Testing was conducted during the spring semester with the assistance of Christian Gilde of UM Western and Christian Byrge of Vilnius University. The decision to evaluate ChatGPT’s creativity stemmed from the researchers’ observation of the AI’s unexpectedly interesting and novel responses during their exploratory interactions with it.
Dr. Guzik explained that the TTCT test employs prompts resembling real-life creative tasks. The AI’s performance in generating a large number of relevant ideas came as no surprise, given the nature of generative AI. However, its ability to produce original ideas caught researchers off guard. The AI’s remarkable capacity to provide novel responses placed it in the top percentile, outperforming even humans in terms of original thinking.
With continuous advancements in AI, Guzik sees it becoming an essential tool for the business world, driving regional and national innovation. He believes that incorporating AI into coursework can help nurture creative thinking and foster entrepreneurship. The UM College of Business is open to teaching about AI and its applications, recognizing its potential to revolutionize entrepreneurship and regional innovation.
