Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38996021›Full record

ArticleScience advances2024

Generative AI enhances individual creativity but reduces the collective diversity of novel content.

Anil R Doshi, Oliver P Hauser

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Science advances, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 81 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
81citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

81 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Trial
  2. Article
  3. Lower engagement of cognitive control in children on ChatGPT.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Review
  8. Review
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. The rise of large language models and the direction and impact of US federal research funding.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Review

21 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Anil R DoshiDepartment of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, UCL School of Management, London, UK.ORCID 0000-0002-8489-3373
Oliver P HauserDepartment of Economics, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.ORCID 0000-0002-9282-0801

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Creativity is core to being human. Generative artificial intelligence (AI)-including powerful large language models (LLMs)-holds promise for humans to be more creative by offering new ideas, or less creative by anchoring on generative AI ideas. We study the causal impact of generative AI ideas on the production of short stories in an online experiment where some writers obtained story ideas from an LLM. We find that access to generative AI ideas causes stories to be evaluated as more creative, better written, and more enjoyable, especially among less creative writers. However, generative AI-enabled stories are more similar to each other than stories by humans alone. These results point to an increase in individual creativity at the risk of losing collective novelty. This dynamic resembles a social dilemma: With generative AI, writers are individually better off, but collectively a narrower scope of novel content is produced. Our results have implications for researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners interested in bolstering creativity.

Indexed as

Artificial IntelligenceCreativityHumansLanguageWriting

Identifiers

PMID38996021
PMCPMC11244532

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.