Evaluating Creativity in Computational Co-Creative Systems

Abstract: This paper provides a framework for evaluating creativity in co-creative systems: those that involve computer programs collaborating with human users on creative tasks. We situate co-creative systems within a broader context of computational creativity and explain the unique qualities of these systems. We present four main questions that can guide evaluation in co-creative systems: Who is evaluating the creativity, what is being evaluated, when does evaluation occur and how the evaluation is performed. These questions provide a framework for comparing how existing co-creative systems evaluate creativity, and we apply them to examples of co-creative systems in art, humor, games and robotics. We conclude that existing co-creative systems tend to focus on evaluating the user experience. Adopting evaluation methods from autonomous creative systems may lead to co-creative systems that are self-aware and intentional.