ZiF Workshop
From Computational Creativity to Creativity Science
Date: 19 - 22 September 2016
Convenors: Kai-Uwe Kühnberger (Osnabrück, GER), Emilios Cambouropoulos (Thessaloniki, GRE), Oliver Kutz (Bozen, ITA)
More than 50 leading researchers from computer science, cognitive science, mathematics, musicology, and psychology discussed cutting-edge problems of computational creativity (CC) and their potential impact to enhance future computational systems. The workshop covered cognitive aspects of CC, formal and social aspects of CC, and the role of ontologies and background knowledge for such systems. Furthermore, practical applications of CC were demonstrated in domains such as music, mathematics, and language generation.
The workshop embraced many different and interdisciplinary approaches towards theories of creativity; nevertheless, many interesting connections and links between the involved disciplines were discovered. For example, there is a close connection between music and mathematics made clear by describing and analyzing music using mathematical concepts, by mapping musical entities, like chords, into algebraic theories, like groups, or by abstractly representing new harmonic spaces and chord progressions by limit constructions of category theory. Another example how the involved disciplines were connected is the formalization of classical psychological or cognitive mechanisms like analogy making and conceptual blending by mathematical and computational means: not only computer science profits from such cognitively inspired principles, but also cognitive scientists gain an added value by being provided with a formally precise and specified concept of the underlying cognitive theory.
In the workshop, also social and evaluative aspects of creativity were discussed: How is it possible that musicians and non-musicians agree on the quality of certain pieces of music, what is the reason that a community of mathematicians agrees that a particular proof in mathematics is correct (or incorrect), or how can we identify principles to evaluate creative systems? The workshop showed that there seems to be a justified hope that one can approximate answers to the difficult question how creative processes and examples of creativity can be evaluated in the nearer future.
All in all, the workshop was a big success having the potential to facilitate sustainably future research in the field. The researchers intend to write a book on CC and creativity science as a follow-up of the workshop, many researchers tightened their links, planned to deepen joint work based on the experience of the ZiF event, and anticipated concrete ideas for future projects. The impact of CC to support users, professionals, and practitioners in theirs work is to be coming.
