Explore human-LLM collaboration for creativity through the lens of concepts

We conducted a theoretical exploration into how human-LLM collaboration can enforce the emergence of creativity through the lens of concepts—a notion that is central in the philosophical discussions regarding human knowledge creation. Kant considers ‘concept’ to be an epistemological tool that transforms people’s perceptive, intuitive experiences into knowledge, while Hegel further postulates that ‘concept’ has a broader, ontological meaning: Through concepts, individuals’ experiences are socialized to a collective level, eventually becoming part of the external world which, in turn, to be experienced and learned by other individuals. Specifically, this paper first reviewed the philosophical discussions revolving around ‘concept’ and discussed how creativity is reflected in and can be facilitated through concept generation. We then reviewed the development of artificial intelligence (including LLMs) and mapped it onto the development of human intelligence based on concepts. Eventually, we identified the commonalities and unique strengths of human (providing drive to start and constraints based on their inherent embodiment) and artificial intelligence (carrying out boundless exploration of new concepts to supply potential options for reaching a creative goal) and based on which proposed a hybrid cycle of concept generation as a general framework or working approach to achieve human-AI creativity.