ChatGPT Diminishes Idea Diversity in Brainstorming, Study Finds
- Reference: 0177513833
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/05/15/001250/chatgpt-diminishes-idea-diversity-in-brainstorming-study-finds
- Source link:
The investigation responds to previous research that examined ChatGPT's impact on creativity. Their findings align with separate research published in Science Advances suggesting AI-generated content tends toward homogeneity. This phenomenon mirrors what researchers call the "fourth grade slump in creativity," referencing earlier studies on how structured approaches can limit innovative thinking.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02173-x.epdf?sharing_token=LA9NyDHj7y5WN8zvb5Qm49RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Nl8PrpXFkjZ93XvmUVBgB9Hlfro5Yo6YELr-pRqbpk3HaZENCvsfV8G1kwtTEj2oW1g87dSVT4BzrfCu3jS_606SLzmoDuDiALChY-MozVM4Pj1b4Vdf-YaIH5p3lfAnM%3D
Obvious, and supported argument (Score:2)
I have a reference to U of T study showing approximately the same thing. In controlled experiments, they showed a clear trend towards agreeable consensus friendly outcomes when teams used AI to do work. They showed that the use of AI creates a dependency and people then tend to try less and get the models to do more of the creativity and overall thinking. It's not hard to see if you've used any LLM for more than a few questions. Also, my personal hobby horse: people are lazy. So this is a logical outcome of
Re:Obvious, and supported argument (Score:5, Funny)
When I fed your comment to ChatGPT it was largely in agreement and praised my intellectual acumen.
Re: (Score:2)
Well done, Sir :-)
Also, your comment was remarkably quickly moderated to +5
I smell something....
Re: Obvious, and supported argument (Score:2)
In my experience, people stop thinking once a reasonable-sounding option is presented. If people get to ask chatGPT first, it's no wonder they converge on similar generic options, whether actually appropriate or not.
Re: (Score:3)
Approximately true.
There was this experiment ran years ago. Someone decided to test if "dogs are smarter than wolves", so they put a wolf in a room with a piece of meat on a string. The wolf jumped, climbed, whatever, got the meat. The dog would just sit there and look at the meat and at the researcher with wet eyes. So, the researcher wrote a paper "dogs dumb, wolves smart".
Then another boffin does the same experiment, but they had a larger lab, so they removed themselves from the room with the dog. Result
Re: (Score:2)
> but looks cutely at the researcher when such is present, hoping to get the boffin cut down the meat, as humans tend to do when a dog looks at them cutely.
That's almost as intelligent as cats, who clearly understand that you should never do anything when humans are present or else they will learn about your abilities and expect you to do things. Obviously the dog knows that the human might get upset if the dog eats^W gets caught eating the human's food.
Re: (Score:2)
I would interpret that as the dog is smarter, and actually very very human like.
Perhaps not "smarter", but well adapted to the environment he live in.
I think manipulating other people to do things for you is one of the most basic human instincts.
So imho, the dog is trying to get the big dumb human to cut the string and feed him.
Very human-like.
Interesting post.
Re: (Score:2)
Source is IIRC from "Inside of a Dog" by Alexandra Horowitz, a very interesting book on dog behavior.
Re: (Score:2)
> Source is IIRC from "Inside of a Dog" by Alexandra Horowitz, a very interesting book on dog behavior.
I've heard the book is too dark to read.
The great equaliser. (Score:2)
In other words, ChatGPT makes idiots appear smarter, and discards more creative, intelligent ideas of the actually smarter people, so we end up with a more balanced curve but overall worse outcome.
Re: (Score:2)
Seems apt. Afaik, the LLMs provide a type of weighted average answer.
So exactly what you say: it helps dummies with below average intelligence reach up the the average, and it weighs down people of above average intelligence, because they spend more effort to vet the outputs, and then likely reject (some of) the outputs.
It's a race to the middle.
Re: (Score:2)
That's one aspect, but it's not the only one. There's also an element reminiscent of Sauron putting his power into the one one ring. When you outsource your thinking, you're going to get dumber, and if that tool goes away (or gets even shittier than it already is), you're screwed.
Human intelligence is a distributed network (Score:1)
The faster you come up with a solution the less of the human intelligence you use. You instead rely on some remembered proven solution made to fit your current problem. So quickly settled solutions need to be thought on and evolved if they are to work.
Do they really? (Score:2)
> ... generative AI tools may enhance individual creativity ..."
I'd be surprised if they actually do that. I think it more likely that the result of a human-and-AI "collaboration" is more creative than the single-person output. But that same enhancement probably occurs when you evaluate human-only collaborations - that's why we have brainstorming sessions.
Also, there are longer-term effects to consider. Does habitual reliance on AI effectively weaken creative muscles? Given my experience with various kinds of labour-saving aids - both physical and intellectual - I'm fa
LLMs are not great at creativity (Score:2)
It makes sense, LLMs are great at transforming information but not coming up with the information itself.
Great! (Score:1)
Now I don't have to smile and nod while I watch you articulate your nonsense.
Re: (Score:1)
It's amazing! You have the only comment here and it's already rated at -1.
Does anyone else think that the /. owners look for certain words and auto downvote?
This is the second comment at my posting time.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
I've lived on this planet long enough to know most of you are degenerates, and your opinions are irrelevant.
Re: (Score:2)
so everytime you post it just shows up at -1?
I'm defending you ... I want to say "moron", because of your reflexively offensive reply... please don't just lash out.
Re: (Score:2)
> I want to say "moron", because of your reflexively offensive reply... please don't just lash out.
Doing that repeatedly is how you get bad karma, as [1]AC just pointed out [slashdot.org]. Makes sense I'm afraid.
[1] https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23692585&cid=65378447
Re: (Score:1)
If memory serves, users with extremely low Karma (i.e. from being repeatedly moderated down) have all of their posts start at a score of -1.
Re:No duh (Score:5, Insightful)
> Does anyone else think that the /. owners look for certain words and auto downvote?
I think that most people recognize "diversity" as one of those keywords that's used for diverting attention from any valuable debate. The mods can see that saying something like "Diversity in general is not a good idea" is really basic flamebait and flamebait gets a -1 mod. I think you are ascribing far more development to Slashdot than we have evidence for. Think of Unicode development for example.
In this particular case, we're talking about "brainstorming". That's the specific part of concept development where you do actually benefit directly from diversity . Stupid ideas are supposed to be left in because they can have inspiration for different sensible ideas that wouldn't come up otherwise. Sort of like word association. You get rid of the stupid ideas in later stages of develpment like "analysis".
In other words, diversity in general is neither good nor bad. It's good when you talk about ideas during brainstorming. Its bad when you talk about the diversity of genetic variation of a virus in your body because it makes the virus more difficult to kill.
The original comment deserves the downvote, even though we can see from my comment how a bad flamebait comment can inspire an interesting good comment, just as a bad idea in brainstorming can inspire other good ones.
Re: (Score:2)
Think of Unicode development for example
ha ha, definitely a good point.
well reasoned comment, I don't disagree.
I stand by my question though. I've seen this several times, where I show up see a comment at 2, make a comment, then when I reload the page, often only seconds later, the first post is downvoted to oblivion... it happens so fast I suspect it's automated... and notwithstanding your unicode example, I still have my suspicions there is a program with it's finger on the scale.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, couldn't be that moderation is working and people could see this was a low value trolling effort by some twat with nothing better to do with their life OR that because they consistently post crap and get moderated down their posts are instantly put to -1...
Re: (Score:2)
Think of it. I showed up. There was only 1 comment already moderated to -1.
How does that happen? That's all I'm saying ... I'm not making any value judgements on the content of the post.
Re: No duh (Score:1)
Let's put a diversity on hold for a minute.
Democracy is really bad idea, too. In a democracy two uneducated drunks have more to say that one university scholar.
Great and fair system, eh?