CONCEPT
Three Configurations of Human-AI Creation
Moles's typology of the distinct coupling arrangements between human and AI encoding systems, each producing different information-theoretic outputs.
Moles distinguishes three configurations of the human-AI
compound channel, each with distinct information-theoretic properties. In the first configuration, the human provides the semantic message and the AI provides the aesthetic elaboration; the information content of the output is bounded by the
semantic information supplied by the human. In the second configuration, the AI generates candidate aesthetic messages and the human selects; here, the AI provides entropy and the human provides the filter that transforms entropy into information. In the third configuration, human and AI engage in iterative exchange, each modifying the other's output; the information content may exceed what either channel could produce independently, because the interaction itself generates new information through the collision of incompatible coding systems. Only the third reliably produces the
supersignal.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The typology is diagnostic. A user can observe their own practice and identify which configuration dominates. A user who describes what she wants in detail and accepts the AI's substantial output without iteration is operating in configuration