Material for Thought: Generative AI as an Active Creative Medium
For researchers and designers of human-AI creative tools, this paper reframes the role of AI from decision-support to a creative medium, but the contribution is primarily conceptual with limited empirical validation.
The paper argues that current human-AI collaboration frameworks misdirect creative effort toward evaluating correctness rather than exploring creative space, and proposes treating generative AI as an active creative medium using the SOSS framework (Shape, Observe, Stir, Select). They present a creative writing probe, Loom, to illustrate this approach.
Human-AI collaboration research has largely positioned the human as a judge of AI output, centering effort on evaluating whether rec- ommendations are reliable enough to accept. This decision-support framing leaves little room for the human as creator. We argue that for creative work, this framing misdirects human effort toward eval- uating correctness rather than exploring and shaping the creative space. Drawing on Schön's theory of reflective practice, we propose an alternative: treating generative AI as an active creative medium. As a potter works with clay, humans Shape, Observe, Stir, and Se- lect (SOSS) their medium through ongoing conversation. Where generative AI actively tends toward convergence and resolution, the human role of disruption and curation becomes essential for sustaining creative quality. We present a creative writing probe, Loom, in which users orchestrate simulated narrative agents. We also introduce the SOSS framework for this mode of engagement, and discuss design implications.