14.4 Three modes of meta-creativity

The workflow level reproduces Boden’s three modes with a precise reference space.

Combinational.

The component workflows and their interfaces are fixed, but the system constructs a new legal composite such as \(R\to C\to O\to R\).

Exploratory.

A grammar of legal workflow graphs is fixed, and the system searches their orderings, guards, probe allocations, and stopping rules under a budget.

Transformational.

The current orchestration sketch cannot express a needed exchange. The system proposes a new packet field, mediator object, interface, workflow, or composition law and independently tests the enlarged meta-sketch.

Thus a newly constructed, independently admitted composition of CLIC, OPTIC, and RELIC may qualify as combinational creativity over workflow operators. Merely wiring together a fixed pipeline is orchestration. The claim becomes transformational only when the system changes the language in which those workflows can be connected. This criterion prevents a large agent graph from being labeled creative merely because it contains several specialized agents.