Are generative artificial intelligence systems such as ChatGPT capable of real creativity? A new large-scale study led by Professor Karim Jerbi from the Department of Psychology at the Université de Montréal set out to answer that question.
The research team also included Yoshua Bengio, a leading AI pioneer and professor at the Université de Montréal. Together, they conducted the most extensive comparison to date between human creativity and the creative abilities of large language models.
The findings, published in Scientific Reports, point to a major shift. Generative AI systems have now reached a level where they can outperform the average human on certain creativity measures. At the same time, the study makes it clear that the most creative people still exceed the performance of even the strongest AI models.
AI Reaches Average Human Creativity Levels
The researchers evaluated several major large language models, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others, and compared their results with data from 100,000 human participants. The outcome marks a clear turning point. Some AI systems, including GPT-4, scored higher than the average human on tasks designed to measure divergent linguistic creativity.
“Our study shows that some AI systems based on large language models can now outperform average human creativity on well-defined tasks,” explains Professor Karim Jerbi. “This result may be surprising — even unsettling — but our study also highlights an equally important observation: even the best AI systems still fall short of the levels reached by the most creative humans.”
