In AI you quickly see in the first chapters that there is a clear tradeoff on creativity. When doing search algorithms (which is what all AI algorithms fundamentally are), creativity is essentially breadth-first exploring of a search space, and the opposite is depth first.<p>Neural networks, for instance, are extremely un-creative. They just go straight for their goal, no deviating (the assumption being that any search space is entirely flat if it just has enough dimensions, and clearly to some extent that's true). They will leave very large swaths of the solution space entirely unexplored. But when they work, you can find the method fast and it will yield decent results. Being uncreative, ironically, makes them adapt very quickly.<p>Genetic algorithms, on the other hand, are the most creative algorithms we have, and of course they are famous for finding ridiculously optimized results, but taking a very long time to do so. Genetic algorithm results are always fun. Genetic algorithms always write a program. And while only simple solutions can be understood by humans, but they're ridiculously optimized. Every instruction does 5-10 different things that affect the end result and somehow those results come together at exactly the right time to work.<p>People, and especially the HR/coaching industry, seem to deny this tradeoff, but it's inevitable. If a person is creative, they'll be slow and unreliable to produce results, but those results will be a lot better (assuming, of course, there are any). A very uncreative person can produce results quickly and reliably, but they're "bad", in a sense: one might say they're just trivial re-hashes of solutions seen before.<p>But I wish I had a dollar for every time a high-level manager has come to me with a variation of the following statement : "Ok, let's plan out how we can creatively solve this problem". If a plan is made, of course, in the best case it cuts down on the creativity, in the worst case prevents it entirely.<p>In my experience most people are entirely capable of being very creative or almost robot-like predictable. It's the environment that forces one over the other (although it may just be their perception of their environment rather than the actual demands placed on them).