Original title: Made in the Image of the Creator? AI Use in Creative Work Reduces Authenticity, Love and Other Psychological Benefits
Jessica Carson, Paul H.P. Hanel, Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg · September 2026
When people make art or write, their creations usually reflect who they are. Today, generative artificial intelligence blurs this connection between maker and project. Researchers ran three experiments to compare creators who worked completely on their own against creators who used artificial intelligence assistance. They found that using artificial intelligence weakens the personal rewards of creating. When people used artificial intelligence, they felt less authentic, less connected to their work, less positive emotion, and less internal drive to create. They also reported more feelings of disgust, guilt, and shame. This happened because creators felt their artificial intelligence assisted work held less of their own love. Overall, artificial intelligence alters how deeply creators feel their projects are true extensions of themselves.
You make a birthday card for a friend by drawing everything yourself. It feels personal because it came from you. Now imagine you use a computer program to generate the design—you just pick a style. Even if the card looks good, it doesn't feel like it's truly from you. In this paper, using AI for creative work is like that computer program: it reduces the sense that the final product contains your love and effort, making creators feel less authentic and sometimes even guilty.
For anyone who creates—artists, writers, designers—using AI may drain the emotional rewards of making something. Instead of pride, creators might feel disgust or guilt. As AI tools become common, understanding these psychological costs is key to preserving the human value of creativity.
The abstract does not specify the exact creative tasks or AI models used, so findings may not apply to all forms of AI assistance. The samples were from the US and UK, so cultural differences are not explored. The experiments rely on self-reported feelings, not actual behavior or long-term effects.
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Made in the Image of the Creator? AI Use in Creative Work Reduces Authenticity, Love and Other Psychological Benefits — Jessica Carson, Paul H.P. Hanel, Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg — PsyArXiv — doi:10.31234/osf.io/shd8p_v1
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.