Will AI ever replace me?

There is significant concern about generative AI's potential to replace jobs.

However, it offers businesses and governments an opportunity to augment human creativity and democratise innovation.

“Democratising innovation,” a term by MIT’s Eric von Hippel, refers to users developing products themselves. Involving users in innovation has grown, but companies face challenges like evaluation overload, expertise bias, and lack of comprehensive solutions.

Generative AI can address these challenges by merging ideas to create stronger ones.

Our research shows AI can enhance creativity and improve idea quality in five ways:

1. Promote Divergent Thinking

Generative AI supports divergent thinking by associating remote concepts. For example, Midjourney generated novel product designs from textual prompts, enabling rapid design evaluation.

ChatGPT used trisociation to generate business ideas by connecting random nouns, demonstrating AI's ability to create unique concepts.

2. Challenge Expertise Bias

Generative AI inspires designers to think beyond preconceptions, overcoming biases like design fixation. For example, Stable Diffusion generated crab-inspired toy designs without functional specifications, sparking creative ideas.

3. Assist in Idea Evaluation

Generative AI evaluates ideas on creativity dimensions like novelty and feasibility. ChatGPT assessed concepts to reduce food waste, providing balanced analyses.

AI's greatest potential is assisting humans in creating innovative solutions.

4. Support Idea Refinement

Generative AI can merge ideas to form stronger concepts. For instance, it combined ideas for a food-waste-reduction program, highlighting AI's role in refining ideas.

5. Facilitate Collaboration with and Among Users

Generative AI facilitates collaboration, enabling co-creation of new products. For example, Stable Diffusion generated flying car designs, showing AI's role in collaborative design.

Generative AI can democratize innovation by removing barriers to idea contribution. Although there may be resistance, the benefits of increased idea generation and novelty make the journey worthwhile. AI's potential lies in assisting humans to create unimaginable solutions.