What 400,000 Essays Reveal About AI and Creativity artwork
Plain English with Derek Thompson

What 400,000 Essays Reveal About AI and Creativity

Jun 5, 2026 · 56 min

For generations, we've defined creativity by its products: the novel, the painting, the song, the breakthrough idea. We look at the work, and from the work we see the creator as “creative.” But AI is getting remarkably good at producing creative work. In some cases, experts now prefer AI-generated writing to work created by humans and can't reliably tell the difference between the two. In fact, a…