The authors consider the essential characteristics of creative thinking, based on the thesis that thinking is not just a function of the brain, but a function and form of human activity as such and, accordingly, of all human culture. Being a form of human activity, thinking is a creatively changing process. In the development of human activity, thinking deepened and expanded, passed from one qualitative state to another, from one mental paradigm to another. This change in human mental activity is now acquiring particular significance in connection with the fourth industrial revolution taking place in the world today, in which artificial intelligence comes to the fore. Thus, today life itself poses the task of shaping and educating a creative person, ready for new challenges and time demands, for humanity. The fundamental difference between creative (reasonable) thinking and the traditional, rational form of thinking, which forms the basis of artificial intelligence, robotics, cyber-physical systems, and information technologies, is that intelligent thinking is able to move from one form of logic to another, whereas the machine always thinks logically and surpasses the human brain only within the once-mastered thinking system.