Name: The Limits of Statistical Storytelling: Why GenAI Cannot Perform Analytic Rumination
Start: 2026-07-09T13:45:00+0100
End: 2026-07-09T14:15:00+0100

Welcome to the Technology, Innovation & the Future of the Creative Curriculum Conference 2026.

The Limits of Statistical Storytelling: Why GenAI Cannot Perform Analytic Rumination

Thursday July 9, 2026 1:45pm - 2:15pm BST

Room 2.45

This paper examines the fundamental incompatibility between generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and the cognitive processes essential to screenwriting through the lens of analytic rumination – the iterative cycle of assimilating, contemplating, and conjugating that produces storytelling insights.

Drawing on five pedagogical experiments conducted across three UK higher education institutions (2024-2025) with 52 students, this research reveals that whilst GenAI can support superficial screenwriting tasks (vocabulary expansion,
translation), it demonstrably fails where deep thinking is required: editorial judgment, thematic development, and transformational creativity.

Using Critical Realist frameworks and evidence from the Torrance Test of Creative Writing, comparative script analysis, and collaborative assessment studies, the paper argues that GenAI's tokenised processing of language fundamentally precludes the hermeneutic engagement necessary for story construction. Student responses across experiments consistently identified GenAI feedback as 'generic', 'non-specific', and lacking the nuanced understanding that emerges from analytic rumination.

The paper introduces analytic rumination as an essential theoretical construct for screenwriting pedagogy, distinguishing between surface-level writing assistance and the cognitive archaeology required for meaningful narrative development. This framework challenges techno-utopian narratives of 'co-thinking' whilst providing educators with conceptual tools for responsible GenAI integration.

Speakers

Ray Grewal

Lecturer: Visual & Performance Storytelling. Researcher: AI Integration into Creative Pedagogy , Central Saint Martins, UAL

Ray Grewal is an award-winning writer, director and producer across film, theatre, television and radio, and has worked with the BBC, Creative UK, the British Film Institute and Ffilm Cymru as a script editor, mentor and development executive. He is currently lecturing in... Read More →

Thursday July 9, 2026 1:45pm - 2:15pm BST
Room 2.45 Art School Entrance

AI & Creative Limits, Paper

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Technology, Innovation & the Future of the Creative Curriculum

Ray Grewal

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Technology, Innovation & the Future of the Creative Curriculum

Ray Grewal

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