Humanities Graduate Students Embrace AI Translation Tools

For Xu Sihan, a Beijing-based literature graduate student, the moment of reckoning arrived in 2024 while reviewing AI translations of classical Chinese literature alongside her own undergraduate work. "I could no longer tell the difference between human and AI-generated literary translations," she told China Daily. Unsettled, she turned to her professor, who offered a reframe: human writing is rooted in unspoken emotions and lived experience - things that resonate even when the writer cannot fully explain them. The conversation steered her from anxiety toward opportunity.

In 2025, Xu sent out numerous applications and received a single offer - a PR internship at a major tech company focused on AI projects. She has since transitioned into an AI product role at a second firm. She credits the internship with a rapid shift in her understanding of the field. "Before I entered the industry, I followed AI news casually, but once I was in it, I was exposed to at least five times as much information," she said. Surrounded by professionals debating AI developments daily, the shift from observer to participant felt unavoidable. "You can no longer tell yourself it is enough to be interested from afar. You must get in the game."

As Xu shared her story online, other liberal arts students began asking how they could enter AI-adjacent work. She identified two directions. The first is need-identification: spotting unmet real-world problems and translating them into product opportunities. A conversation with a friend in HR, for example, surfaced a gap for an AI agent that could match job seekers with suitable openings - a product idea rooted in the observational skills that humanities training sharpens. The second pathway is the human and ethical side of AI: shaping AI personas, making AI communication warmer and more empathetic. These tasks, she argues, draw directly on liberal arts strengths over pure technical skill.

Xu's individual pivot reflects a structural shift underway across Chinese higher education. The Communication University of China (CUC) in Beijing closed five arts majors and three humanities programs - including translation - in 2025. CUC's top official Liao Xiangzhong stated at the 2026 Two Sessions political meetings that translation "has already been largely replaced by AI," calling a dedicated four-year language translation major "a huge waste of national resources," according to Sixth Tone reporting. Jilin University, East China Normal University, and Nanchang University have also announced closures of arts and media programs. China's 2025 three-year university reform plan is simultaneously expanding AI, science, and data programs; the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts established China's first School of Artificial Intelligence Art in 2024, and the China Academy of Art launched an AI and Digital Art Design doctoral track in 2025.

For students navigating this restructuring, Xu points to the growing accessibility of AI learning resources - online courses that can help liberal arts majors grasp basic AI logic without a computer science background. Demonstrating capability through tangible work, such as building a demo using AI coding tools, will matter more than a degree field alone. "I never set limits on myself because of my identity as a liberal arts student," she said. "That's why I ended up doing work that doesn't look like a typical liberal arts job."