
What remains of this concept in todays thinkscape is that - aside from that paint daubing elephant and the chimp artiste, 'curious george'(or as some call him 'MrPresident'

What then, will we do if we are replaced in our human duty to create?
Machines already do much of our work for us with greater speed, accuracy and efficiency. This is something we have grown accustomed to; they mow our lawns, assemble our cars, perform surgery, self-replicate, explore space and ocean, defuse bombs and observe traffic. This all frees up time for the richer of us to write books, watch films or wander round exclusive parks hitting a little ball with a stick. Why then, is it still thought by most, that artificed intelligences will not surpass human intelligence in creativity?
While it may be true that an AI will not 'create' new ideas from out of the blue, isn't that also true of human intelligence? - when was the last time you thought of a new colour or a spatial dimension that was not there before? our creativity is an exploration of what is already given to us and in that sense AI may already be gaining on us.
AIs have been developed that can write novels(slightly cliched genre fiction with very strange analogies) , create paintings(would say 'art' but that's another kettle of fish), apply old solutions to new problems, simulate conjecture in explaining situations(see SWALE), improvise solutions to mechanical problems and design innovative buildings. Will they surpass us? and should we be worried?