17-Year-Old Bangkok Student Launches LivLit to Help Young People Build the Human Skills AI Cannot Replace
Most conversations around artificial intelligence focus on what it can do. Janya Phlaphongphanich, 17, founder of LivLit and student at Bangkok Patana School, is more interested in what it cannot.
“The headlines surrounding AI almost always have the word ‘replace’ in them, which is exactly why I built Livlit: to explore what stays irreplaceable in a world of AI.” Janya said.
LivLit is a student-founded initiative running AI literacy workshops across Bangkok international schools and India, reaching 300+ students to date and building an online community of 2,500 followers on Instagram. LivLit is built on the belief that the skills making humans irreplaceable- thinking critically, connecting genuinely, feeling deeply, and creating originally - are precisely the ones most school curricula treat as supplementary.
The initiative grew out of Janya's time at Stanford University in summer 2025, where she encountered the work of Irreplaceable Institute, founded by Professor Rebeca Hwang and Noah Berkson, and began studying what genuinely sets humans apart from automated systems.
Later on, she built her own version, weaving together the different frameworks she encountered with her own study of emotional intelligence to create a workshop that resonated with her fellow high schoolers.
LivLit's flagship workshop session, "Are You Irreplaceable?"opens with a question most people avoid asking out loud: if AI can do everything, what is left that only a human can do? Students quickly discover that the answer is not about hard skills. AI already writes code, analyses data, and produces first drafts. What remains, and what the workshop is designed to cultivate, are the four pillars Janya labels as think, feel, create, and connect.
LivLit's reach has grown beyond Bangkok. In a recent visit to KIIT JEE Public School in Gurgaon, India, Janya led a session for students aged 12 to 15 enrolled in a robotics programme, meeting young people already deep in technical education and asking them to consider what technology cannot teach them. Closer to home, she delivered a session to secondary students at Bangkok Patana School on navigating social media with critical thinking. Across both workshops, the question was the same: how do we remain human in a world filled with technology?
"AI cannot replace a human," Janya shares, "but it can replace a machine. The question is which one you are becoming."
It is a question worth reflecting on. According to Pew Research Center, 54% of teens already use AI to assist with schoolwork, and 10% admit to having it do most of the work entirely. Meanwhile, MIT Media Lab research found that brain activity drops by up to 55% when people offload writing and thinking to AI - and critically, that effect persists even after students stop using it. Social media trends get repeated without interrogation; input goes in, output comes out. LivLit exists to ask students to notice what they are trading away, and help them strengthen it instead.
Janya also serves as a Wellbeing Ambassador at Bangkok Patana School, working directly with students navigating stress, identity, and connection in an era of constant digital noise. She is a part of the school's varsity dance team, with back-to-back national gold medals, and holds the distinction of being the most senior student representative in Bangkok Patana's student body. Janya’s story is clear: that human connection and creative thinking are disciplines, practiced and earned, not personality traits some people happen to be born with.
Beyond LivLit, Janya serves as Managing Director of Stanford Moonshot Thailand, linking the creative and entrepreneurial thinking cultivated at Stanford to a local youth audience. She is also the co-founder of Tokado, an AI infrastructure startup currently in development that is building systems for genuine human-AI collaboration.
LivLit's next phase is a youth summit on irreplaceability, planned for October 2026. The summit will bring together students and credible speakers to discuss and build the skills that will actually matter in the next decade.
"We are still preparing students for a world that no longer exists," Janya said. "The ones who will thrive are the ones who chose to stay deeply, stubbornly human while everyone else outsources themselves."
For workshop enquiries, partnership opportunities, or media requests, contact [email protected]. Follow LivLit on Instagram and TikTok at @livlitwithjaan, visit livlit.co, or connect with Janya on LinkedIn.
