I have a small bump on the middle finger of my right hand from the way I’ve always held pens and pencils. After particularly intense exams, my friends used to gasp at the depth of the dent, as if it were proof of something extreme, something excessive. I’ve been told it’s normal. I’ve been told it’s not. Either way, it’s far too late for me to change the way I write. The body remembers long after the mind decides.

Artificial intelligence, meanwhile, still struggles to generate human hands. Which is ironic, when the earliest records of human art are handprints. Outlines of palms pressed against stone. Fingers splayed, asserting presence. It’s almost funny how symbolic this is: AI failing at hands, the very tools humans use to create their own original art.

A handprint might be the most human form of art there is. It doesn’t require skill or theory or training. No matter who looks at it, the message is legible: we are human, and we were here. It comes from the same urge that drives legacy, memory, the desire to leave a trace. To be seen. To be remembered. To recognise ourselves in shared features across time.

That experience cannot be replicated by something that isn’t human.

The first artwork many children ever make is a handprint. Which is why I don’t believe the fear around artificial intelligence is really about originality—or competition—or even plagiarism, despite the academic paranoia surrounding it. Nothing is written ex nihilo. Ideas do not spring into existence untouched by influence. Especially not in philosophy, literature, or art. To claim you are the first and only person to have thought a thought is not confidence; it’s delusion. We are not unique in that way, and that is not a tragedy. It’s a comfort.

AI cannot replicate the things that matter.

Fake news existed long before artificial intelligence. So did manipulation. Before AI, there was Photoshop. Before Photoshop, there was propaganda. Blaming the tool is always easier than interrogating the systems that use it.

The two real issues I have with AI are far less abstract. The first is its ecological impact, which is already catastrophic and rarely discussed with the seriousness it deserves. The second is the quiet expectation that in many fields, “using AI” now simply means “keeping up.” It has become invisible labour, unspoken assistance, something we are encouraged not to disclose. Transparency matters. People deserve to know how things are made. But really how different is it from a boss getting to put their name on their intern’s work? 

This becomes especially problematic in art. Art is not about novelty at all costs. It doesn’t need to be original in the way capitalism defines originality. Art comes from repetition, from formulas we rediscover over and over and somehow still cry at every time. I will sob at a thousand fake love declarations in books, films, and songs, and I am grateful I still do. I would rather feel too much than lose the ability to feel altogether.

That’s why this question matters. And Ethan Hawke articulated it better than I ever could in my opinion:

“Do you think human creativity matters? Well, hmm, most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about poetry, right? They have a life to live and they’re not really that concerned with Allen Ginsberg’s poems or anybody’s poems until their father dies. They go to a funeral, you lose a child, somebody breaks your heart. They don’t love you anymore. And all of a sudden you’re desperate for making sense out of this life. And has anybody ever felt this bad before? How did they come out of this cloud? Or the inverse; something great. You meet somebody and your heart explodes. You love them so much you can’t even see straight. You know, you’re dizzy. Did anybody feel like this? What is happening to me? And that’s when art’s not a luxury. It’s actually sustenance. We need it. OK, well, what is it? Human creativity is nature manifest in us.”

AI is an easy distraction. Right now, it’s free, which makes it even more seductive. We don’t visualise the consequences. We don’t measure how often we rely on it. But this ease of access isn’t new. The internet itself was once described as a modern Tower of Babel—limitless access, endless voices. And yes, it revolutionised how we consume media. I think that part is beautiful. I would never have been able to read all the books I’ve read or watch all the films I’ve seen otherwise. One lifetime is not enough for everything we want to know or say.

But saying we feel threatened by AI in art feels like admitting we’ve already lost faith in ourselves. And I don’t believe that. I think it’s foolish to think that way.

If AI were like movie AI—if it truly stood on its own—I would understand the fear. But it doesn’t. It’s embellished, reformulated data. You’re not talking to something new; you’re talking to fragments of past humans, stripped of context and conscience. And studies are already showing how it’s flattening language, creating something like “average English.” A neutral, diluted voice. Nothing sharp enough to cut. Nothing personal enough to wound.

When humans write, nothing is born without influence—but why use the artificial version of that process?

I would like to see AI live through what we live through. Getting sick. Not sleeping for two days to finish embroidering a corset for a contest. Missing a train. Spotify not working so you can only listen to your own voice notes—half bad music, half sobbing. Navigating cities without Wi-Fi. Running into the last person you want to see while sweaty and miserable. Doing makeup in stadium stands without a mirror. Missing buses. Getting fined. Being catcalled by old men. Dragging luggage to parties. Paying full price because the student discount ended. Watching a suitcase break. Sleeping badly. Doing it all again the next day.

AI couldn’t handle our life if it tried, and thank fuck for that because the world still needs humanity.

Nothing it says is satisfactory, because nothing it says has a conscience. That’s not a value judgment—it’s simply how it’s built. Reality is the only thing that’s real. When I see something interesting in an AI response, I don’t want to praise the machine. I want to know which human wrote it first.

And then there are the biases. The datasets. The overrepresentation. The fact that AI is already restricted—or should be—from surveillance because of how deeply flawed it is. And the ecological disaster, which alone should be enough to stop the conversation in its tracks.

Anyway. Who am I to judge?

Actually—no. I am allowed to judge. And this isn’t my thing. I understand the idea intellectually. But no. I don’t want it. I don’t believe in it. And I refuse to pretend that something without a body, without exhaustion, without grief, without a hand pressing into the world, could ever replace the mess of being human.

I’d like to see AI wiping her mascara after crying.

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