In February 2022, nine months before ChatGPT launched, a story scientist sat down with me and argued that computers cannot be creative.

Not “aren’t yet.” Cannot.

Angus Fletcher started out as a neuroscientist at the University of Michigan. Then he left the lab to do a PhD in Shakespeare at Yale. Then DARPA, Hollywood, and US Special Operations came knocking. Ask yourself what elite soldiers want from a Shakespeare scholar, because the answer is not what you’d guess.

His case rests on a claim most of the #AI industry has bet billions against: the brain is not a computer, and the difference is physical, not a matter of more data or bigger models. For Angus, story is the operating system of the human brain, and #literature is the engine of science rather than its decorative cousin.

We went for two hours. We argued about my own definition of story, about why a multiplicity might serve us better than a #singularity, and about Humanism versus AI-ism.

Four years and one generative AI gold rush later, I went back and rewatched it. You can decide for yourself whether the past four years proved him wrong or proved his point.

Watch or listen to my full conversation with Angus Fletcher on Wonderworks here: [ https://snglrty.co/3XvobsT](https://snglrty.co/3XvobsT)

Angus Fletcher is a neuroscientist-turned-storyteller known for proof that AI cannot replicate human creativity, let alone take over the world.