In creative work today the question has shifted. It is no longer “Do we have enough ideas?” but “What are humans for, now that ideas are cheap?” AI can draft credible copy, sketch campaign concepts, and outline product features in seconds. In response, organisations are doubling down on visible rituals of creativity: workshops, “human-only” ideation sprints, and whiteboards thick with words like “delight” and “joy.” The point is to prove something uniquely human is still happening in the room. Too often, though, these sessions reward performance over judgement and slogans over the one thing that might actually help, the worry someone hesitates to say out loud.That tension sits at the heart of Story Systems and Cultural Research. We treat brainstorming not as the main event but as the opening move. Generating options only matters if you put them u ...