Who Expands the Human Creative Frontier with Generative AI: Hiveminds or Masterminds? – MSI

Working Paper

Who Expands the Human Creative Frontier with Generative AI: Hiveminds or Masterminds?

Eric B. Zhou, Dokyun Lee and Bin Gu

Sep 11, 2025

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Explores how the adoption over time of different text-to-image AI models affects the type and amount of creativity displayed by artists posting images at an online platform.

Topics

advertising Marketing Capabilities Technology and AI

research recap

Do 1000 Words Make a (Good) Picture? How Text-to-Image AI Affects Creativity

Text-to-image AI models diffused from “mastermind” early adopters to the “hivemind” can be a catalyst for human creative expression by facilitating increased overall output. Without this productivity effect, however, AI-assisted creators seem to experience a dilution effect when leveraging AI tools where on average their creativity regresses to the mean.

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