AI-Assisted Mythmaking with Critical Limitations Analysis

Kyle Smith is professor of Christianity in the History of Religions program at the University of Toronto, Mississauga and winner of the university's inaugural Early Career Teaching Award. His undergraduate courses bring ancient religious traditions into conversation with contemporary questions about meaning-making, cultural transformation, and technology. Rather than treating AI as simply a research tool, his pedagogy positions AI as both creative collaborator and object of critical analysis, with assignments that ask students to reverse-engineer mythology, create propaganda to recognize manipulation, and design speculative futures grounded in historical knowledge. His research focuses on Christianity in Roman Mesopotamia and Sasanian Persia, with recent work tracing Saint Nicholas's transformation from ancient protector of sailors and thieves to American Christmas icon.

Kyle Smith Professor, Department of Historical Studies, UTM

Objectives

As part of the third-year lecture Christmas: A History (for the Last Generation) (Fall 2025), this assignment, “The Myth-Making Machine,” challenges students to reverse-engineer how historical figures transform into myths, then forward-engineer new mythology for imagined post-apocalyptic futures. Unlike traditional historical analysis that maintains scholarly distance, students must become active mythmakers, tracing transformations like St. Nicholas becoming Santa Claus, then creating entirely new gift-bringing figures for futures shaped by AI consciousness, climate collapse, or currency death.

The assignment strategically integrates AI as a creative partner for generating ideas and imagining “missing links” in historical transformations, while requiring students to identify and articulate what AI fundamentally cannot understand about human myth-making. The required “What AI Gets Wrong About Myth-Making” section ensures students don’t accept AI outputs uncritically but develop theoretical understanding of AI’s limitations around meaning, ritual, and human need for impossible beings.

By creating propaganda packages to launch their new mythological figures, students learn how economic need meets emotional hunger in successful cultural transformations and develop both historical analytical skills and speculative creative capacities. In this way, they come to see mythology as living cultural technology rather than dead tradition.

Process

The assignment was designed as a three-week scaffolded project combining historical research, theoretical analysis, and speculative mythology creation. The steps included:

Step 1: Choose Historical Transformation and Begin Research (Week 8, Hour 2)

Students select one historical figure’s mythological transformation: St. Nicholas → Santa Claus, Father Christmas → Commercial Icon, Christkindl → Kris Kringle, La Befana → Italy’s Witch, or student-discovered transformation
Begin timeline research documenting the “real” person/origin, specific mutation points, and unrecognizable present form
Start sketching possibilities for new post-apocalyptic gift-bringer
Initiate AI conversations exploring transformation patterns and generating ideas for new mythological figures

Step 2: Create Transformation Timeline (Digital Interactive)

Design clickable/scrollable journey showing Year 1 (original person/origin), mutation points (when specific changes happened and why), and current unrecognizable form
Use AI to help imagine “missing links” in the transformation—gaps in historical record where changes likely occurred
Document how economic shifts, religious movements, or cultural needs drove each transformation stage

Step 3: Write Myth-Making Manual (1000 words, Week 9)

Draft instructional guide as if teaching future propagandists how to transform humans into gods
Include sections on: how to pick base figures, when to add supernatural elements, how to make figures commercially viable, why humans need impossible beings
Critical AI reflection section: “What AI Gets Wrong About Myth-Making”—students must theorize AI’s fundamental inability to understand human need for myth, ritual requirements, or emotional necessity of impossible beings
Analyze where AI defaulted to existing mythological patterns rather than genuinely innovative thinking

Step 4: Design New Gift-Bringer for Post-Human Future

Create complete mythological profile including:
- Name and origin story (250 words) grounded in imagined future context
- Visual design (sketch, AI-generated image, collage—must be specific and detailed) Gift philosophy explaining what the figure brings and why (not just reskinned Santa)
- Ritual requirements showing how humans summon or honor the figure
- Values transmitted – what the figure teaches post-human/post-collapse children
New figure must serve fundamentally different function than existing gift-bringers, emerge from culturally specific imagined future, and fill void we don’t yet know we have

Step 5: Create Propaganda Package to Launch New Figure

Develop three items to establish the new mythology:
- Origin myth (300 words) explaining how the figure came to be
- First ritual instructions – concrete steps for how humans engage with figure
- One piece of “evidence” the figure is real (artifact, eyewitness account, archaeological find)
Materials should feel simultaneously ancient and urgently contemporary

Step 6: Document AI Dialogue Analysis (Week 9)

Compile screenshots showing complete AI collaboration process
Annotate where AI helped generate ideas versus where it failed to grasp mythological necessity
Include at least one documented argument with AI about myth versus reality
Analyze AI’s tendency to rationalize myth rather than understand its emotional and ritual functions

Step 7: Peer Testing, Revision, and Final Submission (Week 10)

Present new mythology to classmates in “pitch” format
Observe which myths “stick” in peer memory—which figures feel believable, necessary, emotionally resonant
Revise based on feedback on what makes mythology feel authentic versus derivative
Assemble and submit complete package: interactive timeline, myth-making manual with AI analysis, new gift-bringer profile, propaganda materials, AI dialogue documentation

Future-Focused Skill Development

This activity supports future-ready learning by aligning with principles from the University of Calgary’s STRIVE model. It emphasizes Student-Centred Learning by positioning students as active mythmakers rather than passive analysts, giving them autonomy to choose historical transformations, design speculative futures, and create entirely new cultural figures that reflect their own understanding of human needs and post-apocalyptic contexts. It also promotes Integrity by requiring honest documentation of AI collaboration through screenshots and annotations, demanding that students identify where AI helped versus where it failed to grasp mythological necessity, and compelling critical analysis of AI’s tendency to rationalize myth rather than understand its emotional and ritual functions. Together, these principles help students develop both creative autonomy and intellectual honesty about technology’s role in knowledge production.

Student Feedback

Students valued the creative freedom these assignments provided, noting that open-ended research requirements allowed them to apply concepts to topics that genuinely interested them rather than completing standardized assessments. Students shared that the opportunity to demonstrate understanding through diverse tools and resources – from historical research and theoretical writing to propaganda creation and AI analysis – allowed them to explore material in ways that matched their interests and creative approaches.

^ back to top