In this personal essay, student author Emma Benvenuto examines how AI is slowly taking over student creativity.

On Thursday, August 14, 2025, I gave a presentation to my Honors Dramatic Writing class about an article of my choosing relating to the film industry. The assignment required not only summarizing the piece, but also coming up with three discussion questions to spark conversation.

I based my presentation on Peter White’s article, “Late Night TV Is On The Precipice After CBS Axes Stephen Colbert; Insiders Lament ‘End Of An Era.'” While my first two questions didn’t quite ignite the class, my final one did: “If TV is slowly dying, what art form is next?”

What followed was a 35-minute debate that completely derailed my teacher’s lesson plan. My classmates argued passionately over whether humans themselves might become obsolete in the creation of art.

Alexander Massey, one of my peers, was firmly on the side of AI.

“ChatGPT has been out for five years,” he argued. “Think of a 5-year-old; they’re not capable of that much either. But at 20 years old? Who knows what it will be capable of?”

He’s not wrong.

In just five years, AI has advanced faster than anyone expected. It’s everywhere: in our feeds, in our Google searches, in classrooms and boardrooms alike. Resources like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and GauthAI have become unavoidable in daily life.

But does that mean human forms of art are destined for obsolescence?

Not everyone in class thought so.

Audrey Clinton argued, “People aren’t putting in the work to be creative anymore."

And honestly, I can’t help but agree with her. With AI so fast and accessible, it’s tempting to take shortcuts. People can skip the process of learning, practicing, and developing skills.

No one is born with talent — it’s forged through work, practice, and endurance. If someone who isn’t good at drawing asks an AI tool like Sora to make an image for them, they’ll never actually get better. Part of what makes art special is that it is difficult to make. Not everyone can do it. For art to truly be valued and understood, there has to be an effort and meaning behind it. If shortcuts replace practice, creativity itself could fade, the same way late-night television seems to be fading.

But Abigail Rawls disagreed. She countered: “People are always going to be creative. Since the dawn of time, people wanted to be creative — think of cave drawings.”

And she has a point. Creativity is part of what makes us human. But even if it never disappears completely, what worries me is how people choose to use it. More and more, when I bring up writing or drawing to my friends, I get blank stares. They act surprised when I say I want to be a writer after high school — like I’ve picked a path that’s already crumbling. Writing, they remind me, is a “dying medium.”

That’s the part that stings. Because as a writer, I can’t compete with the sheer amount of output AI can generate. I’ll never match the speed, the convenience, the endless flood of words and images. But I am human. I am a person. Every time we experience art — watching a movie, reading a book, listening to a song — we are hearing or seeing someone else’s voice in some odd way. All of those things, all of that art, in some way, is emotion.

So, how are we going to get robots — literal machines — to tell us our voices? To describe and expand on our emotions, our feelings?

That’s what keeps me up at night.

So yes, Abigail might be right — creativity in itself won’t vanish. But if people stop putting in the work, if we outsource our effort and our voices to machines, then the art that remains may not feel human anymore.

And I can’t help but worry about that.

All we have in this world is our voice. Don’t make us obsolete.

Don’t take away the human from my humanity.