Designing Participatory AI: Creative Professionals’ Worries and Expectations about Generative AI

Generative AI, i.e., the group of technologies that automatically generate visual or written content based on text prompts, has undergone a leap in complexity and become widely available within just a few years. Such technologies potentially introduce a massive disruption to creative fields. This paper presents the results of a qualitative survey (N = 23) investigating how creative professionals think about generative AI. The results show that the advancement of these AI models prompts important reflections on what defines creativity and how creatives imagine using AI to support their workflows. Based on these reflections, we discuss how we might design participatory AI in the domain of creative expertise with the goal of empowering creative professionals in their present and future coexistence with AI.