Creativity is such a powerful marker of intelligence

This morning at breakfast, my daughter wore a t-shirt she had drawn on herself, and it sparked a conversation that stretched from childhood imagination all the way to artificial intelligence.

AI can process vast amounts of data, structure cases, and automate processes at lightning speed. What it cannot do is draw on a t-shirt, feel empathy, or weigh moral nuance. That is where the human contribution remains essential.

It reminded me of Sir Ken Robinson’s famous TED talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”, where he refers to the so-called paperclip test. Adults typically come up with only 10–15 uses for a paperclip, while young children can imagine hundreds. It is a simple illustration of how creativity flourishes in children but tends to diminish as education narrows their thinking.

It also brought me back to a conversation I had in 2019 with Professor Max Louwerse. AI can do many things, but it lacks creativity, empathy, and a moral compass. In the legal system, an AI judge could easily handle straightforward cases by applying the letter of the law, freeing up human judges to focus on complex cases that require true deliberation. The value is not in replacing humans but in knowing when human nuance is required.

AI can apply facts and rules, but it takes human involvement to turn that into wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to combine knowledge with experience, values, intuition, and moral judgment. It is the difference between a machine that answers correctly and a human who acts rightly.

Creativity, empathy, and moral judgment will remain essential. And that is why I feel a responsibility to continue nurturing creativity in raising my children.

It also makes me think about which human qualities will remain indispensable in a world increasingly shaped by AI. What do you think?

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