World news can be overwhelming right now. That’s why at Peerbagh, we lean in on our incredible youth council and student voices to help us imagine a better world. Finding our human voices amid AI slop is a subvertive call to our inherent creativity as a species. We’re beginning this by asking, what does AI writing replace?
Why is building your creative muscle important?
As an adult, if your heart isn’t into writing or making art, take yourself out of it. Why create something if you don’t love the process truly,madly, deeply?
For kids: learning how to write and articulate is a lifeskill. Could we hire a future AI for swimming and skiing? Sure. Would we want to not learn basic skills? There is no job now or in the future that doesn’t require you to know how to communicate. There is no relationship now or in the future that doesn’t require you to share how you feel. It’s what makes us human, think which parts of us are we replacing when we outsource our mind to AI tools.
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Youth Council: Finding Our Human Voices Amid AI slop
How are students using AI?
Ayza Mazhar ud Deen (Karachi)
In Karachi’s Lyceum school, where I’ve studied this past year, students and teachers alike grapple with AI’s rapid advancement. Over half of the students I surveyed use AI tools regularly for schoolwork. Alarmingly, ~80% believe AI will at least partially replace human writing. But for educators, the question isn’t whether AI will change writing, it’s whether anything human will remain.
“I can’t write essays myself now because I’m so used to ChatGPT,” admits a student. “It made me lazier.” AI has changed writing processes and has become nearly impossible to escape.
A Tool, Not a Substitute:
The majority of students say they use it primarily to summarize information or brainstorming. But teachers aren’t convinced. Art teacher Ms. Jamil spots AI-generated work immediately; “I know your ability… and suddenly you’re writing stuff that is all correct.”
English teacher Ms. Batool sees an even broader issue; “AI has dampened student enthusiasm, creativity and intelligence,” she says. “They know AI is going to give them their quick fix.” After 2022, she reports: on average, only 5 of her 20-something students remain genuinely engaged with content. Teachers see this happening in real time. “Students now don’t bother about spelling… sentence construction,” one says.
What AI Can’t Capture:
When asked about what AI struggles with, students and teachers share the same sentiment: emotion. AI would ever be able to capture that.
Student Mishel Rizwan, AI says, “a meaningless string of words that sounds coherent but says nothing”- suggesting readers instinctively recognize AI writing by what it lacks: the human experience. A-level student Ahmed Kharal notes: “I’m trying to avoid it these days because it takes away my brain’s originality.”
The ethics of AI art are also brought up by teachers like Ms. Batool, “How AI is twisting plots of Shakespeare’s plays… it breaks my heart.”
What does AI replace?
Saanvi Warikoo (Delhi)
Humanity just doesn’t seem to ever have stopped. We have humans who have symbioted with computers and then technologists who wished for computers to be human. But scholars of the Behavioural science (Rinhta-Kahila, T. et. al., 2023; Ozer, M. et. al., 2025; Macnamara, B.N., 2024) point towards a pattern of decay. An imperative question to ask is: “Would I be human true if I am deprived of what makes me human apart from my flesh-and-bone?”
What is that which will become of me?
We spend a lot of time asking the question: Will AI replace our writing? But it’s important to think about how AI will replace us. Would it be our thought? Our creativity? Or our BEING? Coming from a writer, it would be all in that chronological order. All of which will be at once.
What do I have if my tongue is your algorithm, my fingers your process and my mind your data? We haven’t truly been replaced. But are very steady on its path.
This may sound all doom and gloom, but there is a way for us to stop the decay and let young minds grow. We do not need to use technology to write. How about making AI or tech-free writing zones at schools and homes. We can also choose to support writers, communities, and artists who are making art without AI-assistance. The ideas are not hard to implement, once we notice what’s at stake.
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