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Leveraging psychedelic neuroscience to boost human creativity using artificial intelligence

Summary

Psychedelic drugs like LSD and psilocybin enhance creativity by disrupting the brain’s Default Mode Network, allowing people to break free from rigid thinking patterns. This paper proposes that artificial intelligence systems could be designed to mimic these same cognitive effects—introducing novel information, making unexpected connections, and gradually expanding comfort with new ideas—thereby enhancing human creativity without drugs. By personalizing AI systems to each person’s personality type and gradually increasing novelty levels, these tools could make creative thinking accessible to people who might not naturally gravitate toward it.

Background

Psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin disrupt entrenched cognitive patterns by disrupting the Default Mode Network and facilitating novel insights. Artificial intelligence systems may similarly enhance creativity by introducing novel associations and reframing familiar information. This paper explores conceptual and neurocognitive parallels between psychedelic-induced cognitive changes and AI-assisted creativity enhancement.

Objective

To argue that psychedelic neuroscience offers both a conceptual and neurocognitive model for designing AI systems that augment human creativity. The paper explores how cognitive mechanisms influenced by psychedelics—reduced latent inhibition, increased divergent thinking, and enhanced implicit learning—can inspire AI approaches to support novel insight generation and creative problem-solving.

Results

Three design principles identified for creativity-enhancing AI: introducing controlled noise/novelty to disrupt mental filters, generating cross-domain outputs with affective salience, and embedding adaptive feedback loops for cumulative insight. Evidence suggests AI can reduce latent inhibition through unfiltered information, enhance divergent thinking via pattern detection, and strengthen implicit learning through personalized interactions. Personality-sensitive AI modulation shows promise for accessibility.

Conclusion

Integrating insights from psychedelic neuroscience with adaptive, user-sensitive AI design may create technologies that augment human creative potential without pharmacological intervention. Future research should empirically test mechanisms through user studies and neuroimaging, explore personality-adapted systems, and address risks including dependency and output homogenization through appropriate safeguards and human oversight.
  • Published in:Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence,
  • Study Type:Review,
  • Source: PMC12174950, PMID: 40535200
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