Many theorists maintain that conscious intentional agency is a necessary condition of creativity. A new paper from researchers Pearson, James S, Dennis, Matthew J, and Cheong, Marc, published on arXiv, argues that this requirement—called the Intentional Agency Condition (IAC)—should be abandoned. The authors highlight the problems this criterion encounters in the face of recent advances in generative AI, which is ostensibly creative despite being incapable of intentional agency.
The Intentional Agency Condition
The IAC holds that for an output to be considered creative, it must originate from a conscious, intentional agent. This has been a foundational assumption in philosophy and cognitive science. However, the paper contends that this condition is too restrictive, especially as generative AI systems produce outputs that are increasingly described as creative by users and observers.
Generative AI's Challenge
Generative AI models, such as large language models and image generators, operate without any subjective awareness or deliberate intent. Yet their outputs—text, images, music—often resemble human creative work. The researchers argue that this creates a predicament: either one denies that AI can be creative, which contradicts growing public usage, or one revises the definition of creativity. They critically evaluate a range of conflicting solutions proposed by theorists, finding that none satisfyingly resolve the initial predicament.
Corpus Analyses
To illustrate the shifting perception, the authors present two corpus analyses that show a rapidly increasing tendency of people to predicate creativity to generative AI. While the paper does not disclose the specific datasets or metrics, the trend is clear: language usage is evolving to attribute creativity to non-intentional systems. This empirical evidence underpins their argument that the IAC is no longer tenable.
A Novel Approach: Creative Ability
In response, the researchers propose a novel framework centered on creative ability. They claim that ascriptions of creativity are dependent on perceived creative ability, rather than on the presence of conscious intention. This approach explains why intentional agency has historically been important for judgments of creativity—because it was a reliable proxy for ability—without making it a necessary condition. Their solution accommodates AI creativity while still accounting for the intuition that perceived intentions matter.
Implications for Enterprise AI Adoption
For CTOs and technology leaders evaluating generative AI, this research offers a philosophical underpinning for treating AI outputs as genuinely creative. If the IAC is abandoned, enterprises may more confidently integrate generative AI into creative workflows—from content generation to product design—without the conceptual barrier that AI cannot be truly creative. The paper's emphasis on creative ability provides a framework for assessing AI systems based on their output quality rather than their internal intentional states. This shift could influence how organizations measure, trust, and deploy generative AI in business processes.
The paper is available on arXiv under a Creative Commons license. The full title is "Creativity Reconsidered: Generative AI and the Problem of Intentional Agency".
