The Story AI Can’t Tell

Why the future of filmmaking won’t be revolutionised by machines—no matter how fast they get.

Ten months ago, an AI tutor helped a student identify the hypotenuse of a triangle. The machine was calm, responsive, and eerily competent.

“Pretty impressive,” said Derek Muller of Veritasium. “And that was ten months ago.”

The clip feels like magic. And maybe it is. But it raises a quieter, more urgent question:

If AI can do everything but care , then  who’s left to tell the story?

In a video talk What Everyone Gets Wrong About AI and Learning, Muller argues that learning doesn’t fail for lack of access to information - it fails because engagement is hard, effort is limited, and meaning must be built, not delivered. That same logic applies to storytelling. It’s not information that holds our attention. It’s intention. It’s structure. It’s someone wrestling with what matters. And no model  -  no matter how big  -  can automate that struggle.

From radio to TV to MOOCs, every generation has promised a revolution in learning. “This time will be different,” they say , and now AI joins the chorus. But education hasn’t fundamentally changed. Not really.

“You keep using that word  -  ‘revolutionise,’” Muller says. “I do not think it means what you think it means.”

The same mistake is being repeated in media. We confuse faster content with better content. More output with more impact. But media, like education, isn’t about delivery. It’s about engagement. We are not short of tools. We are short of meaning.

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, psychologist Daniel Kahneman outlines two types of thinking:

• System 1 is fast and automatic, pattern recognition and habit.

• System 2 is slow, effortful, deliberate, and it’s where real learning happens.

All growth begins in System 2. Mastery, eventually, moves it to System 1. “If they never write 100 essays,” says Muller, “what happens to their brains?” The lesson is clear: practice isn’t optional. It’s the process.

AI is remarkable when it gives timely, accurate feedback. It helps learners, and creators, course-correct in real time. As a storytelling tool, it can test structure, style, purpose, even emotional rhythm  -  fast.

But shortcuts short-circuit growth. If creators never wrestle with rough cuts, edit decisions, or narrative structure, they’ll never internalise storytelling. What they gain in speed, they lose in depth.

“The risk,” Muller says, “is that people stop engaging in effortful practice ,  and never build System 1 fluency.” And in filmmaking, that means a tsunami of videos that look fine but say nothing.

Here’s the overlooked truth: education is a social activity. So is storytelling. You don’t learn (or tell) stories in isolation'; you need friction, feedback, and fellow travellers. The promise lies   not in solo creators automating themselves out of a job, but in collaborative, intentional story cultures, where AI is a tool, not a crutch.

The future of media will split:

• One path produces polished but hollow content at scale.

• The other produces meaning  - slowly, iteratively, with care.

If you care about story , Your job  isn’t to race the machine. It’s to outlast it. Use AI to assist, structure, suggest. But never outsource the work of seeing, feeling, and shaping. That’s what makes a story yours. That’s what the machine can’t touch.

“The world is full of heavy objects,” Muller says. “And yet most people are not ripped.” There’s no shortage of stories. Only a shortage of people willing to lift them,  again, and again, and again,  until something real takes shape.

Don’t just prompt. Don’t just publish:

Train - Use System 2. Push past the easy answer. Like the student who realises, a beat too late, that the Earth doesn’t orbit the sun in a day, growth begins with the moment you notice your first mistake.

Craft - Repeat with intention. As Muller notes, mastery comes from slow, deliberate effort, not from the final product, but from how many times you revise the phrase, rethink the beat, or reframe the problem.

Tell - Turn knowledge into narrative. Like the chess master who sees not 16 pieces, but patterns, relationships, and meaning. Your job is to chunk reality into something others can feel, something that moves hearts to change minds.

References:

1. The video, Derek Muller, Veritasium: (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, April 2025)

2. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

3. Cognitive Load Theory: Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning.