Seminars

Abstract: Generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are believed to have the potential to enhance human creativity. In a preregistered lab experiment, we assigned novel creative tasks to 124 university students and provided a random half of them access to ChatGPT. ChatGPT access worsened creative performance for participants whose creative potential was above the sample median. This negative treatment effect can be explained by the intensity of the human-AI interactions. However, participants with access to ChatGPT reported higher levels of satisfaction and self-efficacy. After the interaction, participants’ self-rated skills in creativity and actual performances in a modified creativity potential task rose, while their self-rated skills in communication, willingness-to-pay (WTP) for ChatGPT access in a future task, and concern and excitement about AI’s creativity, all dropped.