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Creativity & Crime in the Military Domain
David CropleyAssociate Professor of Engineering Innovation
University of South Australia
IntroductionProbably unlike most people here, my background is not in law, criminal justice, criminology, or other related fields.My expertise lies in the field of creativity.Usually, this means extolling the benefits of creativity for art, literature, music – obvious creative domains – and also for technology and engineering.How and why is creativity important to economic growth and progress?
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IntroductionThe link between me and this symposium, however, lies with the specific concept of malevolent creativity.That is, creativity with the goal of doing harm.To explain why that is relevant to this symposium, I’m going to first give you a quick lesson on creativity, and then explain why malevolent creativity helps us understand, and respond to, military crime.
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Outline
Creativity 101Malevolent CreativityFramework for Creativity and Military CrimeStrategies for undermining
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Creativity 101
“The generation of effective novelty.”Most experts in the field broadly agree – creativity involves bringing into being things that embody at least novelty (originality, surprisingness) and effectiveness (these things do what they are meant to do.Those things can be products, systems, processes, services.They encompass art, literature, music, engineering, technology, science, etc.
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Novelty AND Effectiveness!
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Creativity 101
Most experts in the field also agree that there are four ways to look at creativity, called the “4Ps”:
Product – what is done.Person – who does the creativity.Process – when and how it’s done.Press – where it’s done.
Each of the 4Ps gives us a lens through which to view creativity.
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Creativity 101
Many researchers, for example, are mainly interested in the Person.
This leads to research, for example, looking at how to measure creativity in people.E.g. Divergent Thinking tests: how many different uses can you think of for a tin can?
Others, including me, are interested in the Product.
How do we measure creativity in things?
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Creativity 101
There is also a clear bias (assumption?) that creativity is something good.
Person – it makes us happier?Product – it makes business more competitive?Process – we can teach people to do it better?Press – it leads to happier, more productive, workplaces?
However, more recently (>2008) there is an emerging thread of research on The Dark Side of Creativity.
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Malevolent CreativityThe dark side of creativity – i.e. malevolent creativity – recognises that creativity is not exclusive to good things.It recognises that the same benefits of creativity across the 4Ps are also benefits to criminals and terrorists, not just artists, poets and inventors.E.g. if your problem is “further your cause by committing a spectacular act of terror”, then it is almost axiomatic that novelty and effectiveness are just as important to you.Think 9/11.
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Dead Rising 2, “Creativity Kills”
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Malevolent CreativityIn fact, I argue that this concept applies more broadly than just terrorism.Resourceful Crime.This is crime that is probably best characterised by what it is not:
Not impulsive, deviant,Not random, reflexive.
It involves “novel and resourceful measures employed by certain criminals to more effectively achieve their law-breaking goals”.
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Malevolent CreativityFor that reason, I believe it links to the symposium, especially when considering both the commission of crimes (internally) under headings such as:
Genocide, trafficking, fraud, criminal collaboration, etc.
And also when considering how the military plays a role in combatting these activities, both internally, and externally, as part of capacity building, etc.
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Framework
Some of my work in this area has focused on the development of a framework that can be used to make sense of the various factors that both foster and inhibit creativity, across all the stages that can occur, from the first spark of an idea, through to its full implementation.This is the Innovation Phase Model…
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Innovation Phase ModelInvention Exploitation
Phase PreparationKnowledge,
problem recognition
ActivationProblem
definition, refinement
GenerationMany
candidate solutions
IlluminationA few promising
solutions
VerificationA single optimal
solution
CommunicationA working prototype
ValidationA successful
‘product’Dimension Poles
ProcessThinking Style
Convergent vs
Divergent
Convergent
Divergent Divergent
Convergent Convergent
Mixed
Convergent
MotivationReactive
vsProactive
Mixed
Proactive Proactive Proactive
Mixed
Reactive Reactive
Personal Properties
Adaptive vs
Innovative
Adaptive
Innovative Innovative Innovative
Adaptive Adaptive Adaptive
FeelingsConserving
vsGenerative
Conserving
Generative Generative Generative
Conserving Conserving Conserving
ProductPhase output
Routinevs
Creative
Routine
Creative Creative Creative
Routine Routine Routine
PressOrganisational
climate
High Demand vs
Low Demand
High
Low Low Low
High High High
Framework
Developed originally to understand benevolent creativity, e.g. in business organisations, the framework can be used also to characterise when, why, how, etc creativity (and innovation, i.e. the “exploitation of effective novelty”) occurs in a malevolent context.Indeed, this is the basis of a Malevolent Creativity and Innovation framework that researchers in the UK Govt are using in the context of counter-terrorism research.
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Innovation Phase ModelInvention Exploitation
Phase PreparationKnowledge,
problem recognition
ActivationProblem
definition, refinement
GenerationMany
candidate solutions
IlluminationA few promising
solutions
VerificationA single optimal
solution
CommunicationA working prototype
ValidationA successful
‘product’Dimension Poles
ProcessThinking Style
Convergent vs
Divergent
Convergent
Divergent Divergent
Convergent Convergent
Mixed
Convergent
MotivationReactive
vsProactive
Mixed
Proactive Proactive Proactive
Mixed
Reactive Reactive
Personal Properties
Adaptive vs
Innovative
Adaptive
Innovative Innovative Innovative
Adaptive Adaptive Adaptive
FeelingsConserving
vsGenerative
Conserving
Generative Generative Generative
Conserving Conserving Conserving
ProductPhase output
Routinevs
Creative
Routine
Creative Creative Creative
Routine Routine Routine
PressOrganisational
climate
High Demand vs
Low Demand
High
Low Low Low
High High High
Strategies
The question of strategies for inhibiting and/or disrupting creative crime is based around the framework.In addition to providing a basis for understanding when, why, how, where, people may be malevolently creative, the framework also leads to practical ideas for blocking the process of malevolent innovation.
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Strategies
Phase Blocks:At each step in the process, opportunities arise to prevent, or inhibit, malevolent creativity.If we know, for example, that divergent thinking is facilitatory of creativity in the phase of generation, then if we wish to make malevolent creativity harder, we must find ways to disrupt this divergent thinking.This inverts the normal approach where a business would look for ways to improve divergent thinking to make this phase better.
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StrategiesOne challenge of this whole approach is that we may not (probably don’t) have direct control over the “actors” in the way that a company does.In other words, if I want to stop a potential criminal from being creative, I can’t send him/her on an “anti-creativity” workshop.Equally, I probably can’t easily measure that person’s level of creativity without their active consent.
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Strategies
This leads to the interesting challenge of finding ways to indirectly inhibit creativity, and indirectly measure it.The latter is the focus of a new project I am developing.
Using intelligent software agents and a malevolent creativity ontology to find indicators of malevolent creativity in, e.g. social media and email.
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Military applications
The project draws on concepts such as “biodata”.This was first investigated almost 100 years ago, has high validity and reliability, but is badly underutilised by organisations. Past behaviour is a very good indicator of future behaviour.Not just creativity, but retention, organisational identification (Mael, 1991).Potential tool for military criminology?
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SummaryCreativity is, fundamentally, about the generation of effective novelty.Creativity is understood through the framework of the 4Ps.Malevolent creativity is about using the same qualities to enhance crime.The IPM is a framework for understanding the who, what, when, where, how of malevolent creativity.The IPM serves as a basis for developing strategies for disrupting resourceful crime in the military context.
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Questions?
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Available July 2013, Cambridge University Press.
