In one experiment, chatbots scored higher than the average person at inventing unusual uses for everyday objects. But the strongest human ideas still matched or surpassed the chatbot ideas. That is evidence about one kind of brainstorming—not proof that ChatGPT is more creative or a better improviser in general.
What did the ChatGPT creativity test measure?
A 2023 study by Mika Koivisto and Simone Grassini compared 256 human participants with ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT-4, and Copy.Ai on the Alternate Uses Task (AUT), a common test of divergent thinking. Participants and chatbots came up with uncommon uses for four familiar objects: a rope, a box, a pencil, and a candle. The study appeared in Scientific Reports on 14 September 2023 and was corrected on 20 February 2024.
The task asks for alternative ideas rather than the usual purpose of an object. It therefore tests a narrow ability to produce varied or unusual responses. It does not recreate live improvisation: there is no audience to respond to, no physical object to manipulate, and no requirement to adapt an idea in the moment.
How did the chatbots compare with people?
On average, the chatbots outperformed the human participants in the study. IEEE Spectrum’s account of the experiment reports mean semantic-distance scores of 0.95 for AI and 0.91 for humans, and mean subjective-creativity scores of 2.91 for AI and 2.47 for humans.
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| Comparison | What the study reported |
|---|---|
| Average performance | Chatbots scored higher than the human average on the reported measures. |
| Range of human responses | Human scores varied more widely than chatbot scores. |
| Strongest ideas | The highest-scoring human responses generally scored higher than the highest chatbot responses; the study’s abstract says the best human ideas still matched or exceeded those of the chatbots. |
The distinction matters: a higher average does not mean every chatbot response was better than every human response. The result combines a relatively stronger chatbot average with a wider spread among people and standout human ideas at the top.
Does this mean ChatGPT is more creative than humans?
No broad conclusion follows from this experiment. Creativity includes many different abilities, and the researchers assessed one aspect of it: generating uncommon alternative uses for objects. The study does not show that ChatGPT is generally more creative, produces better art, or excels at every kind of creative work.
“Improviser” is similarly limited here. The experiment did not test humor delivered to a live audience, collaborative performance, social responsiveness, embodied action, or how well someone develops an idea under changing circumstances. A result on the AUT cannot settle those questions.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What can you take from the result?
The findings suggest that chatbots can be useful for generating options during an early brainstorming session. They do not establish that a chatbot’s ideas are more useful, feasible, or appropriate for a particular goal, or that human creative judgment can be replaced. Those are separate questions from whether an idea is unusual.
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There is also a time limit on what the experiment can tell us: it tested 2023-era ChatGPT-3 and ChatGPT-4, alongside Copy.Ai. It is not a benchmark of every model available in 2026, and it does not establish how newer systems would perform on the same task.
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