Eliezer, For systematic approach to creativity you need to inform yourself about Genrich Altshuller's TRIZ - the easiest way to do that is to have a look at the TRIZ journal at www.aitriz.com (Altshuller's deepest book that has been translated from the Russian into English is 'Creativity as an Exact Science').

And, on reflection, since you want to build an autonomous optimiser in the form of self-improving AI - and now I understand your concern that it might become a paperclip maximiser since autonomy includes the ability to select ones own goals, and why would they be such as to permit us to pursue our human goals - you might want to look at another optimising system, Eli Goldratt's 'Theory of Constraints'

HTH