Augmenting Creativity using Generative AI: The Method of Trisociation

This monograph explore the use generative AI in augmenting human creativity. It also presents an extensive exploration of the method of trisociation, an relatively unknown technique for divergent thinking that fosters the emergence of novel ideas by interconnecting three distinct concepts. Trisociation builds upon the well-known method of bisociation, which involves juxtaposing two unrelated concepts to uncover fresh insights. While trisociation has been briefly mentioned by Victor Papanek in book ‘Design for the Real World’ published in 1974, it has not been extensively studied or documented in academic research. This paper aims to address this gap by offering a comprehensive analysis of the trisociation technique, encompassing its underlying principles, processes, benefits, limitations, and potential applications. The paper also explores the different ways in which the utilization of generative AI tools, such as large language models (LLMs), can enhance and support the application of the trisociation method by human ideators