Why Is Creative Collaboration With Generative AI Actually Possible? A Theoretical Analysis With Social System Theory and Creative System Theory

This paper presents a systems-theoretical analysis of creative collaboration between humans and generative AI. Interactive generative AI provides meaningful responses to human inputs and generates ideas, leading many users to perceive it as a “partner” in creative collaboration. How, then, is creative collaboration possible with generative AI despite the absence of consciousness resembling that of humans? To answer this question, this paper examines what is actually occurring from the perspectives of sociologist Niklas Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory and the Creative Systems Theory that I previously proposed. These systems theories conceptualize social communication and creative discovery as autopoietic systems with semantic contexts that operate independently of the human mind. Through these theoretical lenses, it becomes clear that while generative AI systems differ from human psychic systems, they can—through Large Language Models (LLMs) enabling sequential linguistic analysis and generation—serve as the functional equivalent of psychic systems by facilitating the synchronization of meaning within the sequential development of social communication and creative discovery. The paper concludes that the sense that interactions and co-creation with generative AI feel human-like should not be regarded as a mere illusion; rather, generative AI actually functions as a legitimate counterpart with whom one can jointly advance communication and discovery.