She started her talk with the question “What is creativity?” and collected different voices from the audience. Then she introduced her own concept of creativity, which is deeply rooted in her artistic work as a performer and musician. In addition to her artistic work, she also holds an interdisciplinary PhD in the Neuroscience and Complex Systems of Creative Cognition and Innovation. Her passion is the connection between these two realms, bringing together head and heart.
After this introduction, Dr. Rahman opened up the discussion to talk about the creative abilities of AI and the value of AI-generated art. For instance, she wonders how AI-generated pictures will affect our viewing habits and our sense of beauty in the long term. But the much more important question for her is how AI can support us in our creative process. She referred to theories about the creative process, such as Graham Wallas' four-phase model, which Csikszentmihalyi developed further by describing the so-called flow state. The flow state is a trance-like state of consciousness that enables concentrated and at the same time associative creation.
With NeuroCreate, Dr. Shama Rahman developed an AI-based platform that aims at supporting humans in getting into the flow state. It is a kind of digital post-it environment that is supposed to facilitate associative brainstorming and finding ideas. The platform is currently being tested and developed with representatives of various creative professions. In the long term, Dr. Rahman plans to design NeuroCreate as a VR environment in order to make creativity tangible with the body.