Reframing the Creative Network - Generative AI as a Crealectic Actant in Creative Assemblages
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2025-07-04
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en
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This thesis investigates how generative artificial intelligence (AI) can function
as a crealectic actant, an entity that collaboratively reshapes human creativity,
challenging conventional models of solitary authorship and inviting new forms
of creative agency. Drawing from distributed creativity, actor-network theory,
crealectics, and posthumanist ethics, it explores how AI might participate
meaningfully in creative processes.
Using a speculative design approach, the research constructs four scenario
quadrants defined by two uncertainties: AI autonomy levels and societal
acceptance of AI-generated content. These quadrants—craft renaissance, copilot
paradigm, digital resistance, and machine authorship—structure an
exploration of potential futures for human-AI creativity. The co-pilot paradigm,
combining low AI autonomy with high societal acceptance, is examined in
depth through a simulated music composition session involving a human
composer and generative AI.
The analysis indicates that AI excels in combinational and exploratory
creativity, remixing existing styles and rapidly generating novel variations;
however, it struggles with transformational creativity, which requires human
imagination, cultural interpretation, and ethical sensitivity. Effective creative
outcomes thus emerge from hybrid collaboration: humans provide crealectic
framing, including imagination, intentionality, and ethical judgment, while AI
enhances ideational breadth and accelerates iteration.
This study suggests creativity is best understood as an emergent property of
human–AI assemblages rather than an attribute of isolated individuals.
Generative AI, acting as a mediating rather than merely intermediary actor,
transforms creative intentions into novel outcomes. However, integrating AI
into creative practices raises critical ethical questions concerning authorship,
attribution, and responsibility. The thesis proposes that navigating these issues
requires adopting posthuman ethical frameworks that acknowledge distributed
agency while ensuring human accountability.
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