Paloma Atencia Linares (UNED) & Miguel Ángel Sebastián (UNAM): Can Artificial Intelligence Systems be really creative?

Tuesday December 17 2024 @11:30 (CEST)
Sala B, Edificio de Humanidades, UNED & online

Abstract
In this paper, we examine whether Artificial Intelligence Systems (AISs) can genuinely be creative. We analyze the conditions typically proposed in the philosophy of creativity and identify which of these pose significant challenges to attributing creativity to AISs. After arguing that standard criteria—such as novelty and value—do not present fundamental barriers for recognizing AISs as creative, we focus on the requirement that true creativity involves subjective intentionality or self-awareness. This requirement often assumes that creativity is tied to a first-person or de se perspective, which is closely associated with conscious experience. We investigate the implications of this assumption and argue that the possibility of AISs being genuinely creative hinges on the correct theory of de se representations. Finally, we explore whether AISs can meet these criteria or if their creativity is inherently limited by their lack of a first-person perspective.

Bio
Paloma Atencia Linares is Associate Professor at UNED, Madrid. Previously, she’s held positions at UNAM, Mexico and University of Kent, UK. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from University College London (UCL) and specializes in philosophy of art, analytic aesthetics, and their intersection with philosophy of mind. Since 2019, she is co-editor of the British Journal of Aesthetics.

Miguel Ángel Sebastián is Professor of Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophical Research at UNAM, Mexico. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Barcelona, where he completed his thesis within the Logos research group. His main areas of interest are philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences, particularly consciousness, subjectivity, attention, and naturalistic theories of mental content. He also has interests in metaphysics and philosophy of language.