Creativity
When Creativity Transmits
Artificial creativity can never inspire us in the same way as human creativity.
Posted June 16, 2025 Reviewed by Devon Frye
Key points
- The best creativity is mysterious and spontaneous, from a place beyond the conscious mind.
- It transmits emotions and experiences to its audience, and so moves and inspires us.
- The greatest artists are the greatest transmitters.
- AI creativity can't have this "transmissive" effect and can never be inspiring in the same way.
The rise of artificial intelligence poses some important questions about human creativity. What is the source of creativity? Is it simply the result of cognitive patterns that can be reproduced by computer algorithms? Is it simply—as the psychologist Susan Blackmore has suggested—the result of memes that we absorb, and which form new combinations in our minds, so that every "new" creative work is in some way a variation of previous works?
Creative works may come from these sources, but I would argue that the best creativity is more than cognitive patterns or memes and cannot be artificially generated.
As I argued in a recent article, creative inspiration is a mysterious phenomenon. In many cases, ideas and insights float into a person’s mind suddenly and spontaneously, without any conscious volition. In the words of the early British psychologist Frederic Myers, they may come as a sudden "uprush" from a "subliminal" mind beyond our normal conscious mind.
According to Myers, our conscious mind is only a small segment of our overall mind, including not only what Freud called the subconscious, but also wider and higher levels of consciousness. Creativity comes from those wider levels. Ideas may mature unconsciously for a long time before they emerge into the conscious mind. Geniuses are people with a thin boundary between the subliminal and the normal conscious mind, so that they receive inspiration easily and frequently.
It's perhaps even possible that the source of these ideas is not just the artist’s own unconscious mind, but some form of collective mind, which all human beings potentially have access to. This might explain the phenomenon of "multiple discovery" (sometimes also called simultaneous invention), when ideas and theories occur to different people at the same time. For example, calculus was formulated by Newton and Leibniz at roughly the same time, while the theory of natural selection was developed concurrently by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.
Transmitting Creativity
However, inspiration is a two-way process. As well as being received, it has to be transmitted.
What is the difference between great and mediocre art? Why do some songs, poems, and paintings move us profoundly, while others—even if they impress us with their technical skill—leave us cold?
Let's take the example of pop music. Why do some bands or songs have great melodies and brilliant musicianship and yet don't leave any emotional imprint? On the other hand, there are many songs that aren’t particularly well played or recorded, yet are tremendously inspiring. The music seems alive and touches us emotionally or spiritually.
Authentic art transmits. Great artists are transmitters
Transmission can occur on two basic levels: the personal and the transpersonal. Personal transmission is when artists transmit their own emotions, feelings, or energy. This might include aggression, sexual energy, emotional pain, joy, and love.
To continue with the example of music, this can occur across a variety of musical forms. The best punk and heavy metal bands transmit energy, aggression, and frustration. The best blues singers and musicians transmit pain and sadness. The best soul music (for example, Marvin Gaye or Aretha Franklin) transmits on a similar emotional level to the blues, but with a wider range of emotions—not just sadness but also love and joy. Personal transmission of this type can be very emotionally stirring for the listener, and even cathartic.
Transpersonal transmission is even more powerful. Transpersonal artists receive qualities from their environment, from the cultural atmosphere (or zeitgeist), or from a domain of collective human experience. They may be inspired by injustice and human suffering and transmit their compassion and outrage to their audience. Bob Dylan’s early "protest" songs carry this kind of transmissive power, as do Bob Marley songs such as "Redemption Song" and "So Much Trouble in the World."
An artist may also transmit spiritual qualities of unconditional love, acceptance, and gratitude. The greatest protest songs don’t focus on the suffering of one particular person or group—or one particular case of injustice—but transmit an all-embracing compassion, and a universal yearning for freedom and happiness. Labi Siffre’s wonderful song "Something Inside So Strong" works on this level. Although inspired by the injustice of apartheid and his personal challenges as a gay man, the song transcends those specific issues to express the universal human struggle to overcome oppression, as well as the universal experience of harnessing deep resilience in the face of adversity.
Beyond AI
Transmissive creativity is tangible. The emotion that inspired the song flows through to us, so that we find ourselves moved to sadness, joy, or anger. After listening to the song, the world seems a slightly different place. We may feel comforted, uplifted, inspired to change ourselves or our lives. This is the great value of music—and all other art forms.
In my view, AI programmes can never have this effect. They can only ever produce inert creativity, which is equivalent to the most uninspired human creativity, like the most formulaic pop songs. AI creativity effectively comes from the conscious mind. After all, it is a creation of the conscious human mind. It is qualitatively different from creativity that is received through the subliminal mind, and transmits its inspirational quality to an audience.
So we artists have no real need to worry. AI creativity will never approach the mysterious, inspirational quality of real human creativity.
