Over the last few months, I’ve been experimenting with creative exercises using AI tools to push myself to be more daring in the types of work I pursue. I’ve mentioned a few of these exercises before, like adding Kismet to my custom instructions or curating ChatGPT’s memory to prompt me toward more creative tasks. 

But then I discovered the theories of American psychologist Robert J. Sternberg. His theories have greatly shaped our understanding of how and why people are creative, and one thing he emphasizes is that courage is a vital component of creativity. In his "Triangle of Creativity" theory, he argues that this courage exists as defiance against three main authorities: “the crowd, oneself and the Zeitgeist."

The idea of creativity as courage really resonated with me. After discovering Sternberg’s theories, I’ve been diving deeper into different creativity styles and found that AI can be a powerful ally for anyone wanting to tap into their creative potential.

The great thing about using AI to foster creativity is that it doesn’t always have to be about huge, paradigm-shifting ideas. There are plenty of low-stakes ways to get started, which can help anyone explore their own creative potential, whether or not they consider themselves particularly creative. 

Remember, creativity isn’t reserved for a select few. It’s a skill anyone can develop and hone, and AI tools can help you consider entirely new possibilities.

Prompts for “mini-c creativity”

James C. Kaufman, another prominent creativity researcher, coined the term "mini-c creativity" to describe the small but meaningful moments of creativity that occur when we push ourselves just a bit further than we did before.

While "mini-c" might sound like it diminishes the value of this kind of creativity, Kaufman encourages us to view it differently. He explains that creativity comes in many forms, and the best type depends on our goals. Mini-c creativity is essential for learning and practicing new skills. I think of it like dipping your toe into the creative pool before you dive in headfirst. This process helps us build the mental tools needed to extend our thought processes. And AI can help you do that.

Guided tutorials

Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are great for offering quick ideas and generating suggestions across a wide range of topics. If you’re brainstorming for a new project, trying to overcome a creative block, or just exploring a concept, you can use them to give you ideas. But they can also go beyond that to help you learn something new.

For instance, I’ve used ChatGPT to coach me through projects as diverse as designing a custom calligraphy font and creating a custom perfume inspired by a trip. By using prompt patterns like the flipped interaction pattern, you can get AI to generate a work plan, adjust it to fit your needs, and then go through the steps, like a personalized tutorial for anything.

But remember to stay vigilant against hallucinations. LLMs can sometimes generate false or misleading information, especially in niche or highly specialized topics. Some say this is hazardous when learning something new, but I disagree. I've found it helps me be skeptical of the information provided and forces me to think more critically about it. 

Prompt template

I want to [goal]. Can you first create a list of steps that we will need to go through to accomplish that goal?
Let's start with 1.  What questions do you have for me in order to complete that step?

Persona creation

One of the most powerful ways to engage with AI is by asking it to take on a persona. This could be a fictional character with a rich background or even an abstract role, like an empathetic coach helping you develop a business strategy. For character development, AI can help you dig into a character’s motivations, internal conflicts, and even their "shadow self"—the parts of themselves they deny or suppress. This approach can help you craft more complex and believable characters for fiction, or even give you new insights into real people. Plus, it's extremely fun to chat with a persona bot, especially if you're the one who created the character.

Prompt template: 

Please take on the role of [insert persona]. This persona is [brief description of the persona’s background, goals, or qualities]. Act as if you are this character, and respond in their voice and with their motivations.

Ask for a prompt

You can also ask AI for creative prompts to kick-start your imagination. ChatGPT tends to default to prompts featuring sci-fi or fantastical elements—strange alien worlds, futuristic cities, or magical themes. But if you specify what you're looking for, the model can generate more tailored prompts. If you don’t like the first suggestion, ask for another!

Prompt template:

Give me a prompt for [project].

The goal of these exercises is to spark something new and interesting. Who knows? It might just lead to the next big project you’ve been searching for.

Prompts for major creativity

Sternberg identifies major creativity as those moments when you not only push beyond your comfort zone but also differentiate yourself from others. As he puts it, "Creativity requires not only the courage to defy the crowd, but also the courage to defy oneself."

Sternberg explains that if you only defy the crowd, you might "generate one or a small number of creative ideas that challenge conventional thinking, but after that, production diminishes rapidly." He refers to this as sparse creativity. "The sparsely creative person, because they are unwilling to defy themselves—unwilling to go beyond their previous ideas—ends up producing variants of earlier work. And when those variants flame out, so does their creativity."

In other words, continually pushing yourself in new ways is essential to sustaining creativity. We see this all the time when experts extend a paradigm in a new direction and move a field forward without completely overhauling it. In my experience, using AI in cyborg-like activities—where you collaborate with the tool to co-create and curate responses—fits beautifully into this kind of boundary-pushing work.

Keep, discard, or modify

The keep, discard, modify game is a great way to use AI to generate a list of creative ideas, then curate and direct the results. This exercise offers a fun, low-pressure way to do something creative, especially after a long day when you want to explore ideas without needing to make serious progress on a project.

Prompt template: 

Generate a list of [10-15] ideas related to [insert topic, project, or concept]. Each idea should be distinct but connected to the overall theme [theme].

I will now go through each one and decide whether to keep, discard, or modify it. For ideas I choose to modify, suggest a variation that could make it more interesting or fitting for my project. 1. Modify 2. Keep....

Please generate the list and include the variations for [variations you like]

Take the discarded ideas and give me a wild, unexpected reimagining of one or two of them. Show me how they could return in a completely new form, but with potential to serve the project or concept better.

Idea morph

Idea morph takes advantage of LLMs' ability to come up with lots of new ideas very quickly and build on them. It’s a great way to push yourself out of your usual patterns of thinking and into more innovative or surprising territory.

Here’s how it works: You start with a simple idea and use an AI tool like ChatGPT to generate several different versions or "mutations" of that idea. For each iteration, you pick the most interesting or surprising transformation and build on it. With each new round, ask the AI to push the idea further—whether by making it more wild, unexpected, emotionally charged, or surreal. You can also experiment with specific characteristics like raising the stakes or deepening the emotional impact. The goal is to explore how far the idea can evolve and whether it takes you to an unexpected place.

Prompt template

I’m starting with [the concept of X/description of your idea/story summary]. Generate five different iterations or mutations of this idea. [Optional: Make each one progressively more [surprising/wild/unexpected/surreal/imaginative/poignant/emotionally charged/high-stakes/poetic/personal] while still retaining a connection to the original concept.

From the mutations, I like [your pick]. Now, take this new concept and push it even further. Generate three to five new mutations of this idea, [making each one more inventive/pushing it into a new direction that explores [description] possibilities].

From the latest mutations, I’m choosing [your pick]. Now, add a new layer to this idea. Focus on how it might [change the world around it/affect the characters/how it could become part of a larger system or story]. Generate three new possibilities or ways to evolve this concept into a richer narrative or world element.

Take the final mutation of the idea [your pick] and three different [stories/scenarios/worldbuilding ideas] where this idea is a central element. Explore how it fits in and how it impacts [the characters/the setting/the theme/the plot].

Exercises for consummate (big-C) creativity

Consummate creativity, or big-C creativity, refers to those moments when you defy all three corners of Sternberg’s creativity triangle: yourself, the crowd, and the Zeitgeist. What's the Zeitgeist? Kaufman describes it as "the common cultural presuppositions on which our field and often our world is built." He points out that "the greatest threat to creativity, for most of us, is not the set of beliefs we or others (the crowd) are aware of having, but rather the set of presuppositions we often do not even consciously know we have." (emphasis mine)

Defying the Zeitgeist—along with challenging yourself and the crowd—is what leads to paradigm-shifting ideas that can change the world. It sounds huge, and it is. While not all of us may come up with Einstein’s theory of relativity, AI tools can help us push against boundaries, even if it’s just a little.

Start simple

One exercise I’ve developed for tapping into creativity is starting with a simple idea and deliberately pushing it in new directions by ignoring conventions. It’s a bit like Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies deck, where a randomly drawn card introduces new constraints or forces you to shift your thinking. 

Here's how it works.

1. Find inspiration: Begin by choosing one small thing around you that catches your attention, or focus on an idea that keeps resurfacing in your mind. Describe it in detail—its physical attributes (like texture, color, or shape), its emotional qualities, or its function. Then reflect on why it caught your eye. What do you feel when you look at it or think about it?

2. Find connections: Ask yourself if it relates to other things in your life. Could it connect to a bigger theme in your work?

3. Add AI: If you’ve stored projects in ChatGPT’s memory, you can ask it to uncover unexpected connections for you. If not, you can add your projects explicitly and ask for connections.

From there, you can move the idea forward in several ways, the goal being to find a perspective outside the typical Zeitgeist, counter to the crowd, or beyond your usual approach. You can come up with your own next steps here to better fit what you're working on.

4. Recontextualize: Take the object or idea and imagine it in a completely different setting. Maybe it's in the future or the past? Maybe it's in a different place or paradigm? Ask the AI for ideas on new contexts or come up with your own. Often, changing the context changes the entire meaning. What new significance or interpretations have you uncovered?

5. Add layers/build depth: Brainstorm additional layers that you could add. You can do this solo or with the help of an AI tool, either using Keep, Discard, Modify or Idea Morph from above.

6. Break your conventions: Identify one rule or convention you typically follow in your work. It could be a convention from the field or it could be specific to your typical style. Break that rule intentionally in a small way. How does it change your process? How does it challenge or improve your project? Take note of what surprises you. Push it as far as you can.

7. Add a random element: Use a random element generator (words, shapes, colors, or even code) or pull an Oblique Strategy card. Incorporate this random element into your project without overthinking it. How does randomness guide your next creative step?

8. Amplify or destroy: Choose one element and amplify it. Make it the loudest part of your work. Or, choose an element and remove it completely. How does this change the overall effect?

Balaji's Transformer

I discovered George Mack’s concept of Balaji’s Transformer through an article on useful concepts by Gurwinder, and I was surprised to find it mirrored in Sternberg’s creativity work. The idea is simple: changing the medium of your creative work can lead you to something special.

Sternberg explains: "Sometimes, creative individuals seek to work in an entirely new domain. The advantage is that they essentially reset their creativity: they start over."

And AI tools are the perfect sidekick to get you started translating the creative pursuit into something completely new. You can decide how and how much you want to use the tools rather than doing it analog. There are no wrong answers here.

Intellinlays

Intellinlays is a creative exercise I developed, inspired in part by Jason Gulya’s work on using AI in education to deepen discussions of literary texts. While Gulya’s focus was on literature, I’ve adapted this technique for engaging with other people’s work more broadly.

At the core of this exercise is the intelligent inlaying of your thoughts into someone else’s work (hence, Intellinlays). Here’s how it works:

1. Choose a piece: Select a piece of work—a text, image, podcast transcript, or video. Copy the content into a document where you can annotate it.

2. Annotate the work:

• Highlight the parts that are particularly interesting—this might include well-worded or thought-provoking sections for writing, or beautiful and surprising elements for art or music.
• Note any questions that arise, such as unclear points or ideas the creator seems to omit or gloss over.
• Make as many connections to other ideas as possible, including other things you’ve read and your own thoughts or experiences.

3. Write 3 reflexive paragraphs: Reflect on your annotations and what you’ve discovered. If you’re concerned about time, set a timer and free write for a set period of time, focusing on capturing your immediate thoughts rather than perfecting the paragraphs.

4. Bring in an AI sparring partner: Select an AI persona to challenge and enhance your ideas. Here are a few possible personas:

• Contrarian Bot: Introduces outside perspectives and pushes new elements into the mix.
• Critic Bot: Analyzes your annotations for flaws or inconsistencies, sharpening your arguments.
• Surreal Bot: Pushes your ideas into absurd, strange, or wild directions.
• Connection Bot: Attempts to draw connections between your ideas and other concepts. (Watch out for hallucinations!)
• Combiner Bot: Links ideas together, helping to create something entirely new.
• Empathy Bot: Focuses on emotional engagement and helps reflect on empathy, understanding, and resonance.
• Assumption Bot: Points out assumptions you might not realize you’re making.

5. Upload your reflections: Include your original annotations and see how far you can push your ideas with the help of AI. Working with ideas in this way is both fun and productive, offering new insights and creative directions.

I use this method to better understand my reactions and see how my ideas fit (or don’t fit) with others. I keep a running list of interesting works by others to use for this, and when I have some time, I dig through them.

A dash of surrealism

I hope these exercises will help you push yourself in new directions. Remember, though, that the work doesn't have to have any set structure.  Some of my favorite—and definitely the strangest—AI generations have been when I let the AI wander into completely uncharted territory. Sometimes it comes back with something delightfully bizarre.

Creativity means constant exploration, but by using AI we can push our creative boundaries in new and exciting ways. Remember, the goal isn't to replace human creativity with AI, but to enhance and expand our creative capabilities - and our courage to defy those conventions in favor of something new.