Proof of Human
This summer, while visiting China, an unconventional animated movie caught my attention and then the public’s. The film 牛来 (Niu Lai), translated as Here Comes the Cow, became a viral box-office hit despite, or perhaps because of, its visibly low-budget production.
After watching it myself, I had to admit that it was not the most delicately produced animation. The movie was filled with crude 3D graphics, stiff movements, awkward dialogue, and an extremely confusing plot. These elements trended on social media and attracted Gen Z audiences like me. Young moviegoers flooded theaters to “hate-watch” the film as an ironic joke, helping its ticket sales skyrocket.
What drew me to the film, however, was not necessarily how funny its animation or plot was. It was the story behind it.
Niu Lai was made by a mother-and-son duo, Xin Yumeng and his mother, Sun Lifang, over five years using basic software and limited equipment. Together, they handled nearly every part of the production, including writing, voice acting, animation, and music.
After clips from the movie went viral, criticism poured in. So did comments praising the courage, effort, and sincerity of its creators. One of the most prominent compliments was simple: “At least this isn’t AI slop.”
When Perfection Becomes Easy
Whether we want it or not, AI is reshaping human art. You can see it everywhere, from advertisements and comic books to Instagram captions and journalism articles.
With its ability to produce something close to polished in very little time, generative AI has become a tempting creative assistant. It can paint, write, design, and combine ideas almost instantly. When everyone around you appears to be creating at such a massive scale and rapid pace, it becomes difficult not to use it yourself.
As a writer, I have noticed that generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini can produce polished writing faster than I can. They can correct grammatical errors, suggest sophisticated sentence structures, and offer clearer ways to present an idea. Although these systems still make mistakes, their speed and confidence can make their work appear effortless.
That is what makes the temptation so powerful.
It is also why many artists feel threatened. According to a UNESCO report, generative AI could reduce music creators’ revenues by 24% and audiovisual creators’ revenues by 21% by 2028. Research discussed by the Stanford Graduate School of Business also found that the arrival of AI-generated images on an online art marketplace was associated with a 23% decline in the number of non-AI artists.
Many generative AI systems are trained on enormous collections of images and text. This allows them to recognize patterns and relationships between words, visual concepts, styles, and structures. AI can also blend unrelated ideas almost instantly. A human artist might take days to conceptualize an astronaut riding a horse on Mars in the style of Vincent van Gogh. An AI image generator can imitate those visual instructions in seconds.
AI also lowers many of the technical barriers involved in making art. For human artists, mastering texture, lighting, color, perspective, and composition can require thousands of hours of practice. AI bypasses much of that physical execution and produces an image at the click of a button.
Imperfection as Evidence
This is why imperfection and time are becoming valuable markers of human-made art.
Before generative AI, art often took weeks, months, or even years to create. Pottery might have an uneven surface. An oil painting might contain visible brushstrokes, unblended colors, and curving lines. A piece of writing might be published with an unusual rhythm or an imperfect but unmistakably personal style.
Art goes through rounds of drafting, polishing, editing, failing, and trying again. It consumes time and effort. That labor is part of what gives art its value.
When “productivity” and “efficiency” become inseparable from art, is the result still as memorable or meaningful as it was before? Art is often defined through the expression of human creativity and imagination. Without the human being behind it, something important disappears.
Human art contains evidence of decision-making. It shows hesitation, frustration, experimentation, and growth. Its imperfections are not always failures. Sometimes, they are fingerprints.
Too Perfect to Feel Real
Another trend I noticed in Chinese media during my visit was the rise of AI-generated short films. In contrast to animations like Niu Lai, these films are often immaculate.
Their main characters arrive with porcelain skin and seemingly divine features. Ugliness barely exists. Their plots frequently rely on familiar storylines with little variation in conflict, climax, or resolution. Every piece of dialogue feels like it could have been copied from an older film.
The audience may find comfort in that familiarity, perfection, and safety. Not much can go wrong in a film without novelty or blemishes. At the same time, very little feels surprising or alive.
The AI video industry is rapidly expanding. Industry estimates collected by Luma AI project major growth in the AI video-generation market during the next decade. These tools can dramatically reduce production time, making it easier for companies and individuals to create more content at a lower cost.
But producing more art does not necessarily mean producing more meaningful art.
What We Risk Losing
I am unsure whether this growth is a good sign. When art is mass-produced, will artists, original ideas, and human craftsmanship continue to be valued?
My heart sank when I read that Ithaca College was ending its Theatre Administration program for future students. The college said the program would be folded into a broader Creative Industries pathway, while students already enrolled could still complete their degrees.
The change was not presented as a direct replacement of theater education with AI. Still, it made me think about what happens when institutions reduce or restructure opportunities to study the arts while investing more heavily in technology-focused programs. If younger generations have fewer chances to engage with and receive an education in artistic fields, how will they continue sustaining human creativity?
Technology itself is not the enemy. The danger appears when efficiency becomes more important than expression and when institutions treat human creativity as something replaceable.
Art Should Cost Us Something
Here is my verdict: Art should cost us something.
It should require time, effort, vulnerability, and care. Art should be allowed to be messy. It should be allowed to be imperfect. It should be allowed to take time.
If anything, the popularity of films like Niu Lai shows that Gen Z still desperately wants human-made work. Audiences recognized the film’s flaws, but they also recognized the commitment behind them. Its imperfections became evidence that two people had cared enough to spend five years making something of their own.
Artificial intelligence should assist human artists, not replace them. As long as we treat art with respect, sincerity, and sufficient effort, we can keep it on a human path.
In an age of seamless artificial production, the cracked vocal, shaky camera, uneven brushstroke, and messy sentence may no longer be something to hide.
They may be our proof of human.