A prosthesis for imagination: Using AI to boost your creativity
想象力的假肢：使用 AI 提升您的创造力

AI can already beat humans in many measures of creativity. Let's use that to our advantage.
人工智能已经可以在许多创造力方面击败人类。让我们利用它来发挥我们的优势。

A prosthesis for imagination: Using AI to boost your creativity --- 想象力的假肢：使用 AI 提升您的创造力 (substack.com)

By many of the common psychological tests of creativity, AI is already more creative than humans.
通过许多常见的创造力心理测试，人工智能已经比人类更具创造力。

For example, one standard measure of creativity is the remote association test (or RAT). This test asks people to find the common word that connects a set of three seemingly unrelated words. For example, pine, crab, and sauce are connected by the word “apple.” (Try one: what word connects cream, skate and water? The AI answers it in the screenshot!) Unsurprisingly, ChatGPT is very good at this, maxing out the test even when I created novel RAT questions that had not previously appeared in the literature
例如，一种衡量创造力的标准是远程联想测试（或 RAT）。这个测试要求人们找到连接一组三个看似无关的词的常用词。例如，pine、crab 和 sauce 是通过“apple”这个词联系起来的。 （试一试：什么词连接奶油、冰鞋和水？AI 在屏幕截图中回答了它！）不出所料，ChatGPT 非常擅长这一点，即使我创建了以前没有出现在文献中的新颖 RAT 问题，也能最大限度地完成测试

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A second standard measure of creativity is the alternative uses test (AUT). This measures an individual's ability to come up with a wide variety of different uses for a common object. In this test, a participant is presented with an everyday object, such as a paper clip, and is asked to come up with as many different uses for the object as possible. For example, a paper clip can be used to hold papers together, to pick locks, or to fish small objects out of tight spaces. The alternative uses test is often used to evaluate an individual's ability to think divergently and to come up with unconventional ideas. Again, ChatGPT maxes it out in my informal test (in case this was based on training data, I also generated some new AUT prompts, which it also aced). This is not surprising because previous, more formal studies had found that earlier versions of GPT were close to human-level performance.
创造力的第二个标准衡量标准是替代用途测试 (AUT)。这衡量了一个人为一个普通物体想出各种不同用途的能力。在这个测试中，参与者会看到一个日常物品，例如回形针，并被要求尽可能多地想出该物品的不同用途。例如，回形针可用于将纸张夹在一起、撬锁或从狭小的空间中捞出小物件。替代用途测试通常用于评估个人发散思考和提出非常规想法的能力。同样，ChatGPT 在我的非正式测试中发挥了最大作用（如果这是基于训练数据，我还生成了一些新的 AUT 提示，它也取得了优异成绩）。这并不奇怪，因为之前更正式的研究发现，早期版本的 GPT 性能接近人类水平。

Now, obviously, these tests were made for humans, not AIs, so it isn’t clear that they are measuring anything that is truly creative… and yet… as AI technology continues to evolve, we are seeing more and more examples of machines generating solid stories, art, and even music (Seriously, click that link if you haven’t seen Google’s new music-generating AI). It's easy to look at these developments and start to panic, thinking that AI is on the cusp of replacing human creativity altogether.
现在，很明显，这些测试是针对人类而不是 AI 进行的，因此尚不清楚它们是否在衡量任何真正具有创造力的东西......然而......随着 AI 技术的不断发展，我们看到越来越多的机器生成的例子可靠的故事、艺术，甚至音乐（说真的，如果您还没有看到 Google 的新音乐生成 AI，请点击该链接）。看到这些发展很容易开始恐慌，认为人工智能即将完全取代人类创造力。

But I don’t think we should see this as competition. In fact, the strength of AI is that it can help us break through the parts of the creative process that many humans are bad at, and let us become better at generating ideas ourselves. This isn’t theoretical. I want to give you three ways you can use AI right now, and especially ChatGPT or GPT-3.5, to be more creative when you need to solve a problem or come up with a new idea.
但我认为我们不应该将其视为竞争。事实上，人工智能的强大之处在于它可以帮助我们突破很多人类不擅长的创作过程，让我们更擅长自己产生创意。这不是理论上的。我想为您提供三种现在可以使用 AI 的方式，尤其是 ChatGPT 或 GPT-3.5，以便在您需要解决问题或提出新想法时更具创造力。

Fluency: Creating lots of ideas 流畅：创造很多想法

An issue with human idea generation is that not everyone is equally creative. Some people are really good at generating ideas, and they can apply this ability in almost every context. Indeed, recent research has shown that the “Equal Odds” rule is true, which is that very creative people both generate more ideas (fluency, in the graph), and better ideas (creativity, in the graph), than other folks. Overall fluency was not correlated with intelligence, and people who were bad at idea generation might still be best at creative execution, but, as the graph shows, there are some people with the skill of idea generation and some without. Until the past year, there was no prosthetic or approach that would help people who were not good at generating a lot of ideas to do better (besides coffee). Now there is: generative AI. As we saw in the AUT test, is excellent at generating a long list of ideas.
人类创意产生的一个问题是并非每个人都具有同样的创造力。有些人真的很擅长产生想法，他们几乎可以在任何情况下应用这种能力。事实上，最近的研究表明“机会均等”规则是正确的，即与其他人相比，非常有创造力的人会产生更多的想法（图中的流畅性）和更好的想法（图中的创造力）。整体流畅度与智力无关，不擅长创意的人可能仍然最擅长创意执行，但是，如图所示，有些人具有创意生成的技能，而有些则没有。直到去年，还没有任何修复或方法可以帮助那些不善于产生大量想法的人做得更好（咖啡除外）。现在有：生成人工智能。正如我们在 AUT 测试中看到的那样，非常擅长生成一长串想法。

I suspect the Equal Odds rule does not apply to AI, and most of the default ideas of AI are of mediocre quality (though more on this soon). But that is okay, because that is where you, as a human, come into the equation. You are looking for ideas that spark inspiration and recombination, and having a long list of generated possibilities can be an easier place to start for people who are not great at idea fluency.
我怀疑 Equal Odds 规则不适用于 AI，并且大多数 AI 的默认想法质量平庸（尽管很快就会有更多）。但这没关系，因为这就是你作为一个人进入方程式的地方。您正在寻找能够激发灵感和重组的想法，并且拥有一长串已生成的可能性对于那些想法不流畅的人来说可能是一个更容易开始的地方。

So how do we do it? Let’s imagine that we want to come up with 20 ideas for marketing slogans for a new mail-order cheese shop. The AI can generate those for us, but we will get even better quality if we tell the AI to act as someone who is good at coming up with ideas. You can see below, we get better results if we say: You are an expert at marketing. When asked to generate slogan ideas you come up with ideas that are different from each other, clever, and interesting. You use clever wordplay. You try not to repeat themes or ideas. Here is your first task: come up with 20 ideas for marketing slogans for a new mail-order cheese shop, make them different from each other, and make them clever and creative.
那么我们该怎么做呢？假设我们想为一家新的邮购奶酪店的营销口号提出 20 个想法。 AI 可以为我们生成这些，但如果我们告诉 AI 充当善于提出想法的人，我们将获得更好的质量。你可以在下面看到，如果我们说：你是营销专家，我们会得到更好的结果。当被要求生成标语创意时，您会想出彼此不同、聪明且有趣的创意。你使用巧妙的文字游戏。你尽量不要重复主题或想法。这是你的第一个任务：为一家新的邮购奶酪店想出 20 个营销口号的想法，使它们彼此不同，并使它们聪明且富有创意。

And… most of the ideas are terrible, while a few have potential (and bad puns). But that is okay! It took us no time to generate 20 ideas, and it is costless to skim them to see if they inspire better ideas. If none of those sparked your interest, ask for another 20 with different prompting. Ask it to consider a particular customer (a cheese shop that will appeal to novices, or to children), or to change the context of the prompt in other ways. Tirelessly generating concepts is something AIs are uniquely good at.
而且……大多数想法都很糟糕，而少数有潜力（和糟糕的双关语）。但没关系！我们很快就产生了 20 个想法，浏览它们以查看它们是否激发了更好的想法是没有成本的。如果这些都没有引起您的兴趣，请在不同的提示下要求另外 20 个。让它考虑一个特定的顾客（一家对新手或儿童有吸引力的奶酪店），或者以其他方式改变提示的上下文。不知疲倦地产生概念是 AI 的独特之处。

Variance: Creating novel ideas 差异：创造新颖的想法

Another key aspect of idea generation is to embrace variance. Research shows that, to find good novel ideas, we likely have to come up with lots of bad novel ideas, because most new ideas are pretty bad. Fortunately, we are good at filtering out low-quality ideas, so, if we can generate novel ideas quickly and at low-cost, we are more likely to generate at least some high-quality gems.
创意产生的另一个关键方面是拥抱差异。研究表明，为了找到好的新点子，我们可能不得不想出很多糟糕的新点子，因为大多数新点子都非常糟糕。幸运的是，我们善于过滤掉低质量的想法，因此，如果我们能够以低成本快速产生新颖的想法，我们更有可能产生至少一些高质量的宝石。

There are lots of potential ways to do this with ChatGPT. One is to play with constraints. In general, and contrary to what most people expect, AI works best to generate ideas when it is most constrained. Force it to give you less likely answers, and you are going to find more original combinations. You might want to ask: You are an expert at problem solving and idea generation. When asked to solve a problem you come up with novel and creative ideas. Here is your first task: tell me 10 detailed ways an AI (or a superhero, or an astronaut, or any other odd profession) might make espresso. Describe the details of each way.
使用 ChatGPT 有很多潜在的方法可以做到这一点。一是玩约束。一般来说，与大多数人的预期相反，人工智能在最受限制的时候最能产生想法。强迫它给你不太可能的答案，你会找到更多的原创组合。您可能想问：您是解决问题和产生想法的专家。当被要求解决一个问题时，你会想出新颖而有创意的想法。这是你的第一个任务：告诉我人工智能（或超级英雄、宇航员或任何其他奇怪的职业）可能制作浓缩咖啡的 10 种详细方法。描述每一种方式的细节。

And, in seconds, we now have 30 diverse and unusual ideas. Again, most are terrible (“The superhero uses their shape-shifting abilities to transform into a coffee machine, brewing and serving espresso shots directly from their own body. This method ensures that the coffee is always fresh and perfectly brewed.”🤢) but some are interesting and might spark further thought (Heat vision espresso makes me think of unusual heating elements to heat water faster, the AI predictive grinding for beans has me thinking about how there are no smart grinders on the market that I know of). And, again, if there aren’t enough ideas on the table, generate more.
而且，在几秒钟内，我们现在有 30 个不同寻常的想法。同样，大多数都很糟糕（“超级英雄利用他们的变形能力变成一台咖啡机，直接从他们自己的身体冲泡和供应意式浓缩咖啡。这种方法确保咖啡总是新鲜和完美冲泡。”🤢）但是有些很有趣，可能会引发进一步的思考（Heat vision espresso 让我想到不寻常的加热元件可以更快地加热水，AI 预测研磨豆让我思考我所知道的市场上怎么没有智能研磨机）。而且，如果桌面上没有足够的想法，请产生更多。

You can also use other techniques, like asking it for interview transcripts for fake interviews: Create an interview transcript between a product designer and a dentist about the problems the dentist has, for example. Or ask it to describe non-existent products: walk me through the interface for a fictional new water pump that has exciting new features. There is an art to this that you can learn from experimentation, and you should feel free to share other prompt techniques that work in the comments.
您还可以使用其他技术，例如向其索要虚假采访的采访记录：例如，创建产品设计师和牙医之间关于牙医遇到的问题的采访记录。或者要求它描述不存在的产品：引导我浏览具有令人兴奋的新功能的虚构新型水泵的界面。您可以从实验中学到一门艺术，您应该随时在评论中分享其他有用的提示技巧。

Getting unstuck: avoiding inertia
摆脱困境：避免惰性

People always ask me if I use AI to write my posts. I don’t, but I absolutely use it when I am feeling stuck to inspire and “unstick” me. For example, I rewrote one paragraph in this post three times before asking ChatGPT to write it for me. The result was good enough to keep moving forward, and I have since gone back and modified it beyond recognition.
人们总是问我是否使用 AI 来写我的帖子。我没有，但当我感到被困住时，我绝对会使用它来激励和“解开”我。例如，我将这篇文章中的一段改写了三遍，然后才让 ChatGPT 帮我写。结果很好，可以继续前进，后来我回过头来修改它，面目全非。

This is not uncommon. Many of us have ideas, but often we have trouble actually taking the next step with them, since, to borrow from Eliot, “Between the idea/ And the reality/ Between the motion/ And the act/ Falls the Shadow.” There are many Shadows, the things that stop us from taking action on ideas and, as a result, many good ones never become reality. A great thing about ChatGPT is you can always ask it to help you with the step you are stuck on: here is my first sentence, continue it. Or give me the subheadings for the following story idea. Or give me a fictional transcript where I pitch the CEO of a family-run Italian espresso company the idea for a new kind of espresso machine using laser heaters. There is tremendous value in overcoming inertia, and often a small push is what we need to do it. So, no, I don’t let ChatGPT write these posts, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t help me write them.
这并不罕见。我们中的许多人都有想法，但通常我们很难真正采取下一步行动，因为借用艾略特的话，“在想法/与现实/在行动/与行动之间/落下阴影。”有很多阴影，阻止我们对想法采取行动，结果，许多好的想法永远不会成为现实。 ChatGPT 的一大优点是您可以随时请求它帮助您完成卡住的步骤：这是我的第一句话，继续。或者给我以下故事创意的副标题。或者给我一份虚构的成绩单，我向一家意大利家族经营的浓缩咖啡公司的首席执行官推销了一种使用激光加热器的新型浓缩咖啡机的想法。克服惰性具有巨大的价值，而通常我们需要做的只是一个小小的推动。所以，不，我不让 ChatGPT 写这些帖子，但这并不意味着它不会帮助我写它们。

Idea generation is similar: it is unlikely that ChatGPT will generate your next great idea alone, because, no matter how well it scores on the RAT test, it isn’t really creative in the way a human is. But, by providing you with fluency, variance, and momentum, it can be a critical partner when you need to solve your own problems.
想法的产生是相似的：ChatGPT 不太可能单独产生你的下一个好想法，因为无论它在 RAT 测试中的得分如何，它都不像人类那样真正具有创造力。但是，通过为您提供流畅性、差异性和动力，当您需要解决自己的问题时，它可以成为重要的合作伙伴。