Musings on AI Muses: Support for Human Creativity

Generative AI now enables many artifacts to be created with little human involvement. But delegating primary responsibility for artifact generation to AI may alter the creative process in undesirable ways. Here we consider an alternative approach, one in which AI provides encouragement, constructive feedback, and horizon-expanding reflection, only taking on significant content generation when requested. This role corresponds to that of a muse, supporting rather than replacing the human creator. After reviewing the roles human muses play, we discuss interactions with several generative AI models in three scenarios of use, identifying conversational behaviors that an AI Muse would need to exhibit.