The next great test for computers: creativity

Computers beat us at our own games, surpass us in diagnosing some diseases and fool our senses. Some of us worry about them taking our jobs while others envision they'll free us up to do more meaningful, creative work. But as algorithms acquire and improve human skills, will they too become creative?

A contest at Dartmouth that serves as a Turing test for creativity assures us that hasn't happened yet. Contestants submit algorithms that produce sonnets, complete stories and can perform as one partner in dancing and singing duets. Last year's submissions for a short-story-concluding-code, for example, fooled just one human judge one time.

But will creativity remain a seemingly untouchable aspect of human intelligence? That's the question we asked researchers.

• Jesse Engel, artificial intelligence researcher, Google Brain: Augmenting human creativity
• Simon DeDeo, complexity theorist and cognitive scientist, Carnegie Mellon University and the Santa Fe Institute: thy commitment, decorated with Joy, begins to speak briskly
• Ed Newton-Rex, founder and CEO, Jukedeck: Computers are already creative
• Tony McCaffrey, CTO, Innovation Accelerator: Computers and humans and super-creativity
• Oded Ben-Tal, composer and researcher, Kingston University: Our definition of creativity will change
• Simon Colton, artificial intelligence researcher, University of London: Machines will be creative for, with and despite us