Creative AI technology (AI used in creative practices) is predominantly designed through human-centered approaches, and more specificallyhuman-centered framing of creativity. Drawing on More-than-Human (MTH) design, in this paper, we argue for the need to shift from designing for human-centered creativity to designing for sympoietic making-with within situated ecologies, when it comes to creativity technology. We approach this through a relational, site-oriented design research inquiry that starts with a multispecies ethnography in a local ecology. Through this, we develop insights of more-than-human co-creation processes within the environmental ecology and bring these insights to a materialized form in speculative designs to examine them further. Subsequently, we examine the speculations through the critiques of human-centered conceptualization of creativity, providing an analytical tool for examining human-centered vs. more-than-human-centered notions of creativity in the design processes of creativity technology.

More-than-human (MTH) design acknowledges nonhuman actors and considers relational socio-technical ecologies more widely in design processes, which is essential for broadening ethical reflection beyond humans. Creative AI — AI technologies used in creative domains like design — are becoming commonplace and changing creative practitioners’ work, making it critical to examine what kind of MTH relations are configured through their design. This provides an opportunity for re-futuring through design towards broader ethical (multispecies) commitments. Motivated by this, we engaged in and present insights from three design sessions with MTH designers and humanities researchers, re-imagining Creative AI technologies with MTH commitments through sketching and discussion. We present themes surfaced through the design sessions, e.g., designing for MTH creativity, attuning to nonhuman cultural practices, and situated designs in specific ecologies that inform alternative, relational, more-than-human design of Creative AI systems.These findings highlight concrete pathways for re-futuring Creative AI technologies through design towards more-than-human ethical commitments.

The design justice of AI technologies is infuenced by value tensions, by which values get embedded and excluded in design processes. In this study, we investigate Euro-Western artists’ expressed values for the design of Creative AI technologies. We conducted four workshops, in which artists engaged in value sketching and critical discussion around Creative AI, and analyzed emerging values. In the sketches, the artists predominantly expressed values of self-interest, while when encouraged for a critical discussion artists expressed values aligned with interest of others. We discuss the challenge of aligning Creative AI with design justice, when values of common good are not inherently part of the technological imaginaries, but rather need to be explicitly evoked. We open up these value tensions, discussing values’ actionability, and the implications for design futures of Creative AI. With this paper, we extend the empirical studies in value sketching and socio-technical landscape of Creative AI.

From issues of intellectual property rights, environmental impact,and the question of creativity in itself, Creative AI  (AI applied to arts and design) presents many pressing ethical challenges. At thes ame time, AI ethics guidelines have been criticised for their rationalist inactionability, highlighting the need for finding ground-up approaches for exploring situated ethics and anticipatory – rather than reactive – ethics in AI technology design. In this paper, we present the results of organising two workshops with Creative AI practitioners in writing fictional research abstracts (FRAs). The participants wrote future-oriented research scenarios for Creative AI and engaged in discussion about them, with the aim to critically reflect on Creative AI ethics and futures in an anticipatory manner. In this paper, we provide an analysis of the imaginaries within the abstracts (e.g. stakeholders, technology framing, and scientific study framing in the abstract), as well as a thematic analysis of topics evoked in and by the abstracts. We observe that the FRAs facilitated five different kinds of thematic discussions, of which nature of creativity and role on AI in the society were particularly prevalent. We also witnessed socio-technical continuity that brought current and past conditions as constraints into the future scenarios. We subsequently reflect on how the FRAs engaged with ethical questions using the Anticipatory Technology Ethics perspectives of technology, artefact, and application. Our work contributes to the empirical understanding of the ethical concerns of future Creative AI technologies and their role in society, while extending the empirical insights of applying the FRA method into a situated case of anticipatory ethics reflection.