A history of creativity for future AI research

We look at two traditions for talking about creative activity, one originating in the classical Latin use of the word “creare” as a natural process of bringing about change, the other in Jerome’s later use in the Vulgate bible, referring to the Christian God’s creation of the world from nothing but ideas. We aim to show that because the latter tradition has predominated recently in the fields of Psychology and Artificial Intelligence these academic fields have been limited in scope to the Western culture of individualism and progress. We argue that the former tradition is a more general and useful notion as it applies more readily to describing human experience and activity as well as applying equally to other non-western cultures. Furthermore, because both traditions are still alive, and since they are both referred to through the use of this word “creativity”, there is chronic confusion in everyday modern discourse as well as in Psychology and Artificial Intelligence. We outline these two traditions in order to understand and unpick this confusion and discuss implications for future research.