Characterizing creativity and generative AI in physics

There is growing research in the PER community investigating gen-AI's capabilities, including its accuracy in solving and interpreting physics problems, as well as its ability to perform instructor-like tasks such as providing feedback. A key interest is how gen-AI engages with student thinking, particularly in fostering creativity—a central goal in education. In this talk, we present a literature review on creativity in education, examining its application across various disciplines, alongside preliminary work from a computational physics classroom. This work aims to build towards initial guidelines on effectively utilizing gen-AI to foster creativity in physics.