{"paper":{"title":"\"Like Taking the Path of Least Resistance\": Exploring the Impact of LLM Interaction on the Creative Process of Programming","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"LLM assistance shortens idea-generation periods in programming and reduces creative moments while final solutions contain similar numbers of ideas.","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"cs.HC","authors_text":"Run Huang, Souti Chattopadhyay, Zeinabsadat Saghi","submitted_at":"2026-05-13T16:54:51Z","abstract_excerpt":"Creativity is fundamentally human. As AI takes on more of the generative work that once required human imagination, despite documented limitations in creative ability, a critical question emerges: How does GenAI affect users' creativity? Through a within-subject study followed by retrospective interviews with (N=20) programmers, we investigated the impact of LLMs on participants' process of creative thinking in programming and the creativity of generated solutions. Across two conditions (LLM-assisted vs. unassisted), participants using LLMs had significantly shorter idea-generation periods (p="},"claims":{"count":4,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"Participants using LLMs had significantly shorter idea-generation periods (p=0.0004), leading to fewer creative moments (p=0.002), while generated solutions contained roughly the same number of ideas as participant-generated ones.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"That the chosen measures of 'idea-generation periods' and 'creative moments' validly capture creativity in programming and that the within-subject design sufficiently controls for individual differences and learning effects across conditions.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"LLM assistance shortens idea-generation periods and reduces creative moments during programming tasks while yielding solutions with comparable idea counts and greater functional correctness.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"headline","text":"LLM assistance shortens idea-generation periods in programming and reduces creative moments while final solutions contain similar numbers of ideas.","source":"verdict.pith_extraction.headline","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C4","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"788fd827c52c7d9ba5865423d70cd71a896e901db1060291fc244207f53bbb62"},"source":{"id":"2605.13776","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":"5b8e4de0-7980-4473-92a8-8812b2eac4ff","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-14T17:36:53.267947Z","strongest_claim":"Participants using LLMs had significantly shorter idea-generation periods (p=0.0004), leading to fewer creative moments (p=0.002), while generated solutions contained roughly the same number of ideas as participant-generated ones.","one_line_summary":"LLM assistance shortens idea-generation periods and reduces creative moments during programming tasks while yielding solutions with comparable idea counts and greater functional correctness.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"That the chosen measures of 'idea-generation periods' and 'creative moments' validly capture creativity in programming and that the within-subject design sufficiently controls for individual differences and learning effects across conditions.","pith_extraction_headline":"LLM assistance shortens idea-generation periods in programming and reduces creative moments while final solutions contain similar numbers of ideas."},"references":{"count":84,"sample":[{"doi":"","year":2017,"title":"Selcuk Acar, Cyndi Burnett, and John F. Cabra. 2017. Ingredients of Creativity: Originality and More.Creativity Research Journal29 (2017), 133 –","work_id":"dbba5ba8-73d1-4030-a7a7-a0b86bcaff3b","ref_index":1,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"10.1080/10400419.2017.1302776","year":2017,"title":"doi:10.1080/10400419.2017.1302776","work_id":"41a11bf8-e44d-4661-9e60-5ba6db49c2f1","ref_index":2,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":1983,"title":"Teresa M Amabile. 1983. The social psychology of creativity: a componential conceptualization.Journal of personality and social psychology45, 2 (1983), 357","work_id":"1fb60148-91a5-4cbf-8556-d4d56ad98afb","ref_index":3,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"10.1145/3639476.3639766","year":2024,"title":"Reproducibility of Build Environ - ments through Space and Time","work_id":"d077587f-3de6-4a34-bcf0-e77b4f4b534e","ref_index":4,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"10.1145/3635636.3656204","year":2024,"title":"Homogenization effects of large language models on human creative ideation","work_id":"331bc2e6-4f09-43d5-88f9-6d2c425c276c","ref_index":6,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false}],"resolved_work":84,"snapshot_sha256":"d05adc0570972ea6a015c0ce2d1fceb843978224a3266ff3ab5de7a582e99c32","internal_anchors":2},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}