Student Blog: Making vs. Machine

The creative path belongs to us, and no technology can claim it. Creation is the lived process of starting with nothing and discovering something you did not know you could make, and that path will always be human. Yet we have begun to forget what gives the arts their meaning. Everywhere we look, we are shown only the polished version. We scroll past clips, we watch performances, we share highlights, and rarely do we stop to think about what it took to get there. We have trained ourselves to believe that the finished product is the point, when in truth the real art has always lived in the making. 

It is here that AI draws its limits. AI will keep producing, but production is not creation. Creation asks for time, for trial and error, for the willingness to begin again and again with no guarantee of success, and for the courage to let others see you when things fall apart. That vulnerability is the core of the arts. They are not static products to consume but living encounters. They are unstable and unpredictable. A machine will never waste time, which means it will never create depth. Art carries the history of everything it took to exist, and that history is what separates a living creation from a manufactured output. 

At the same time, creation is not just about making art, it is about learning how to live with uncertainty. Every act of creation carries the possibility of failure, yet artists move toward it anyway. That act is not only artistic, it is profoundly human. Machines do not fail, and because of that, they cannot take risks. Without risk there is no discovery, and without discovery there is no art. Audiences sense this even if they cannot always explain it. They may believe they want perfection, but what moves them is risk. What lingers is immediacy, the feeling of having witnessed something that will never happen again in quite the same way. 

What has been on my mind most recently is that art is never created in isolation. Even when an artist works alone, the process is shaped by memory, by influence, and by the world the work eventually enters. When I am choreographing in my room, I am not creating in isolation. The music itself is already an exchange with the artist behind it, whose choices shape mine. Creation is always a dialogue. Once shared, it becomes an even fuller exchange. Machines can deliver results, but delivery is not the same as real human connection, and connection is the heartbeat of art. This is what many conversations around AI miss. Art has never been about permanence but about ongoing change. 

The greater danger lies not in what AI produces but in what we allow ourselves to accept. The real risk is that we will lower our expectations until convincing becomes enough. That we will stop asking for weight, for history, for risk, for the unrepeatable. If that happens, the arts will not have been replaced by technology. They will have been hollowed by our own neglect. What we must remember is that art does not endure because it is flawless. It endures because of its fragility. 

The truth, even if uncomfortable, is that the arts are not content. They are not efficient, and they are not permanent. They belong to us because they are built from what only humans can give: memory, bodies, breath, time, and the willingness to risk failure in order to find something real. Hone your imagination and let it guide you. Trust that creativity is already within you. Begin from scratch and allow the work to unfold.

AI will go on producing endlessly and instantly, but creation will always be uncertain and alive. And because of that, the creative path will always belong to us. The arts will always endure as our deepest expression of life.