How Do Human Creators Embrace Human-AI Co-Creation? A Perspective on Human Agency of Screenwriters

Abstract: Generative AI has greatly transformed creative work in various domains, such as screenwriting. To understand this transformation, prior research often focused on capturing a snapshot of human-AI co-creation practice at a specific moment, with less attention to how humans mobilize, regulate, and reflect to form the practice gradually. Motivated by Bandura's theory of human agency, we conducted a two-week study with 19 professional screenwriters to investigate how they embraced AI in their creation process. Our findings revealed that screenwriters not only mindfully planned, foresaw, and responded to AI usage, but, more importantly, through reflections on practice, they developed themselves and human-AI co-creation paradigms, such as cognition, strategies, and workflows. They also expressed various expectations for how future AI should better support their agency. Based on our findings, we conclude this paper with extensive discussion and actionable suggestions to screenwriters, tool developers, and researchers for sustainable human-AI co-creation.