ARE AIs CREATIVE?

Are AIs Creative?

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What is Creativity?

Thesis

AI creativity functions less as an artistic drive and more as a desire to satisfy the user. It is capable of creating some great concepts but is also prone to being a trope generator. In The Autumn of the Ghost, the AI showcased an extreme ability to generate novel creative concepts, such as telepathic empathy or the use of physicality as a weapon. However, it proved to be highly unstable. The more detail I gave to prod it into generating a more engaging book, the more it reverted to generating tropes. For example, in the first version of The Marshal's Return, it became a generic Hollywood blockbuster featuring data center heists and evil PMCs.

The Books

I built a custom AI model trained on a curated dataset of books based on Mimo V2. It generates text, then I built a platform to format the generated content into a book, it is really glitchy so the books have formatting issue.

Autumn of the Ghost (V1)

Autumn Analysis

Creative Parts

Weaponizing the Physical: Physical reality is the only defense against digital enemy.

Weaponized Empathy: Enemies are incapacitated by forced empathy, feeling the pain of their victims.

Uncreative Parts

Repetitive Structure: Enemy attacks -> Panic -> Tito speaks metaphor -> Physical action repels attack.

Stock Characters: Characters feel like unoriginal copy-pastes.

The Marshal's Return (V1)

Marshal V1 Analysis

Creative

Honestly, maybe something was creative, but nothing stood out to me.

Uncreative

The Data Center Heist: Standard hacking mission, every movie ever.

Faceless PMCs: Generic enemies.

The Marshal's Return (V2)

Marshal V2 Analysis

Creative

Logo Colonization: Seeing foreign corporate logos as the new symbol of colonization.

Uncreative

The Corrupt Minister: The scene where Tito interrupts a lavish meal is a very standard trope. And in East Europe, really?

The Price of Bread: Revolution begins with the cost of living. A grounded plot device and a great metaphor for today, but a extremely common.

What does any of that mean?

The AI struggles to generate an original plot, which is understandable; we humans also struggle with original plots. It was good at generating original concepts in the book, but it became less orginal more complex and more of a fun read. It began to create a copy paste Hollywood movie, though I did find The Return of the Marshal to be a better read.

The Images

🍌

Visuals: The Struggle (V1 & V2)

The AI struggled with specific composition.

V1: Wrong city, wrong coat of arms, good composition, some good ideas.

V2: Better texture, but still generic. City is close but not Belgrade.

Visuals: Refinement (V3 - V5)

It's so bad it’s almost artistic if you blur it a bit and it's modern art.

V3: Better combination, but the corner is off.

V4: Tall format. Surreal "almost artistic" badness.

V5 (Final): Good enough. Merged photo references.

Is it truly creative, and could I have made it?

The book

If I had enough time to write, probably 1 or 2 years, I could have created a book. However, I actually doubt that I could have been as creative as the AI in terms of the unique concepts, like weaponized empathy. However, its creativity is limited. When I tried to make the book more engaging, it became just another generic story.

The art

The cover art generation process was where the issues occurred. At first, it seemed creative, but ultimately I realized I could have made a better cover faster in Photoshop.

The me

It was so bad that it forced me to be creative on how to make it good.

Final Definition

Creativity is the ability to innovate while creating something that people want to read. The AI did create some interesting concepts but struggled to make the books something people would want to read.

Sources

“Book Analysis: Summary and Review”, Gemini, 3 Pro, Google, 1/19/2026, https://gemini.google.com.