Can Machines Be Truly Creative? (with Maya Ackerman)

Maya Ackerman is an AI researcher, co-founder and CEO of WaveAI, and author of the book "Creative Machines: AI, Art & Us." She joins the podcast to discuss creativity in humans and machines. We explore defining creativity as novel and valuable output, why evolution qualifies as creative, and how AI alignment can reduce machine creativity. The conversation covers humble creative machines versus all-knowing oracles, hallucination's role in thought, and human-AI collaboration strategies that elevate rather than replace human capabilities. LINKS: - Maya Ackerman: - Creative Machines: AI, Art & Us: PRODUCED BY: CHAPTERS: (00:00) Episode Preview (01:00) Defining Human Creativity (02:58) Machine and AI Creativity (06:25) Measuring Subjective Creativity (10:07) Creativity in Animals (13:43) Alignment Damages Creativity (19:09) Creativity is Hallucination (26:13) Humble Creative Machines (30:50) Incentives and Replacement (40:36) Analogies for the Future (43:57) Collaborating with AI (52:20) Reinforcement Learning & Slop (55:59) AI in Education SOCIAL LINKS: Website: Twitter (FLI): Twitter (Gus): LinkedIn: YouTube: Apple: Spotify:

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Can Machines Be Truly Creative? (with Maya Ackerman) is an episode from Future of Life Institute Podcast by Gus Docker.

This episode is 61:51 long.

This episode was published on Oct 24, 2025.

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