One¹: Generative AI systems have recently emerged as significant contributors to creative processes. However, despite their potential to enhance individual creativity, the widespread use of LLMs could diminish the collective diversity of creative ideas:

Generative AI systems, especially Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, have recently emerged as significant contributors to creative processes. While LLMs can produce creative content that might be as good as or even better than human-created content, their widespread use risks reducing creative diversity across groups of people. In the present research, we aimed to quantify this homogenizing effect of LLMs on creative diversity, not only at the individual level but also at the collective level. Across three preregistered studies, we analyzed 2,200 college admissions essays. Using a novel measure—the diversity growth rate—we showed that each additional human-written essay contributed more new ideas than did each additional GPT-4 essay. Notably, this difference became more pronounced as more essays were included in the analysis and persisted despite efforts to enhance AI-generated content through both prompt and parameter modifications. Overall, our findings suggest that, despite their potential to enhance individual creativity, the widespread use of LLMs could diminish the collective diversity of creative ideas.

Two²: Concerns that AI homogenizes human thinking appear at odds with findings that LLM writing is perceived as more creative than human writing:

Concerns that AI homogenizes human thinking appear at odds with findings that LLM writing is perceived as more creative than human writing. We propose that LLMs enhance superficial semantic diversity while simultaneously homogenizing underlying ideas. Four large-scale natural experiments tested this preregistered “disjunctive homogenization” hypothesis in 372,793 personal statements written in high-stakes college admissions contexts. Comparing 5 before-versus-after ChatGPT’s release revealed increasing word-level diversity simultaneous with decreasing conceptual diversity at sentence and whole-document levels. Controlled experiments provided causal evidence of AI’s influence and identified a plausible mechanism: a positive association of word-to-idea diversity in humans was reversed in GPT. Despite conceptual homogenization, raters perceived post-ChatGPT essays as more creative due to 10 increased word-level diversity, even when considering multiple essays. Disjunctive trends were strongest among minoritized applicants.

And three: Creativity is core to being human. Generative AI–enabled stories are more similar to each other than stories by humans alone, However, generative AI ideas causes stories to be evaluated as more creative, better written, and more enjoyable, especially among less creative writers:

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.

And I think that this is the key: Despite what seems conceptual homogenization, raters perceived post-ChatGPT essays as more creative. AI ideas causes stories to be evaluated as more creative, better written, and more enjoyable, especially among less creative writers.

Creativity is core to being human, and usually perceived as such by people dealing with intellectual activities⁴. However…

History of technology, and specially the recent history of digital technology, proves that convenience and perception always win. And history will repeat if we allow a reduced number of companies and states to control the evolution and delivery of “Generative AI.” However:

Who, exactly, still cares?

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(1) Moon, Kibum, Kostadin Kushlev, Andrew Bank, et al. The Creative Link Between Words and Ideas Is Weakening in the AI Era. 2025. https://osf.io/download/tja5g/.
(2) Moon, Kibum, Adam E. Green, and Kostadin Kushlev. ‘Homogenizing Effect of Large Language Models (LLMs) on Creative Diversity: An Empirical Comparison of Human and ChatGPT Writing’. Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans 6 (December 2025): 100207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbah.2025.100207.
(3) Doshi, Anil R., and Oliver P. Hauser. ‘Generative AI Enhances Individual Creativity but Reduces the Collective Diversity of Novel Content’. Science Advances 10, no. 28 (2024): eadn5290. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adn5290.
(4) References in this post via Rebecca Winthrop, “What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity”, NYT May 27, 2026

Featured Image: Edvard Munch. The Scream. (In the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 80 years or fewer.)