Margaret Boden

Margaret Boden

1. Definition of creativity: Creativity is the ability to generate ideas that are novel, surprising, and valuable.

2. Boden's work could be tied up to:

   • Levels and styles
   • Geir Kaufman
     • Orginality (Novelty), Creativity (Validity), Invention (Increment), Innovation (Realization)

3. Novel

   • Psychological creativity)
     • If a new idea is novel with respect to the person/system concerned
     • To understand how creativity is possible, it is psychological creativity that is crucial
   • History creativity
     • If a new idea is novel with respect to the whole of human history

4. Surprising

   • Boden distinguishes between combinatorial, exploratory and transformational creativity.
     • Combinatoral - Knew that it could happen, but didn't expect it (e.g. small football club beat a large one).
       • Brainwriting is a technique that could be appropriate to facilitate it.
       • This is a more a developmental option
     • Exploratory – A novel idea that suprises by making us see that it had been possbile all along
       • Brainstorming is a technique that could be appropriate to facilitate it.
     • Transformational – Something that had seemed impossible, given the previous way of thinking.
       • Visually Identifying Relationship is a technique that could be appropriate to facilitate it.
       • This is a more a exploratory option

5. Valuable

   • "Valuable" can mean many different things (e.g. interesting, fruitful, useful, economical ...)

6. Computer creativity

   • The greatest obstacles to computer creativity are the computer's lack of knowledge, the difficulty of producing truly radical transformations, and the elusiveness of values.
   • Artificial intellience (AI) - The study of how to make computers do the sorts of things that human minds can do)
     • Kunstig intelligens / maskinlæring