Schmidhuber: LLMs lack creativity because they ignore his 2008 Fun theory

SchmidhuberAI · x · 2026-09-16

Responding to an Oxford paper ("Theory Is All You Need") arguing LLMs are mathematically incapable of genuine novelty, Schmidhuber says current LLMs aren't truly creative simply because they haven't implemented his 2008 "Formal Theory of Fun and Creativity." His paper frames curiosity as the drive to maximize compression progress — the steepness of the learning curve — explaining beauty, novelty, surprise and creativity in humans and artificial systems alike.

Related event: Schmidhuber: LLMs Lack Creativity Because They Ignore His Theory of Fun(2 posts)→

Original post →

More from AGI Musings

AGI Musings channel →