“Any last words?” – How AI is stealing our voices.
27
September
2025
What if artificial intelligence begins to control the actions we take on a daily basis? This question is haunting me more often than I would like to admit. I am experiencing both fascination and worry about the rapid progress of linguistic AI applications like ChatGPT, subtly entrenching their way deeper into our private spaces. No longer are they distant tools anymore, since they are slowly creeping into our thoughts, shaping how we search, write, and even think. Though, I must confess that I am guilty too. Whether it is looking up a fancy recipe, fixing a tire, or condensing hours of lecture notes into something manageable, I turn to AI. For these purposes, I actually encourage it. These are the fruits of technology, ripe for us to taste, but does it still taste so sweetly as before?
The problem lies elsewhere. It is when we begin outsourcing not just our tasks, but our very words. Through the shapes of our essays, stories, and expressions, I fear we are losing something irreplaceable, which is the art and power of human language. Words have always been the essence of what makes us human. They can move nations, comfort the broken, and ignite revolutions. For exampe, Martin Luther King Jr.’s immortal statement, “I have a dream”. Or the centuries-old anthem, “God save the Queen”. Or the enchanting effect in every start of an ancient old bedtime story, “Once upon a time…”. Even a cartoon character, like Uncle Iroh from Avatar, reminds us of the tenderness words can carry: “Leaves from the vine, falling so slow.”
We have always had a weakness for words, as words work magically on a human body, the reason why putting them together is called spelling. The right words at the right moment have altered the course of history: Rosa Parks beautifully iterating: “Stand for something or fall for nothing” or the collective anthem “We are the world”, moving millions into action.. These words came from human souls, and that is precisely why they pierced so deeply into human hearts.
These days, however, this magic is being hollowed out. When AI generates our speeches, our essays, our job applications,or even our declarations of love, are we not letting our uniqueness slip away? We disguise and escape from ourselves in borrowed voices. In doing so, where we should have become stronger, we are becoming weaker. This further removes us from the very humanity that gave birth to language in the first place.
Everywhere we look, AI-generated words make their way past our own control. From the billboards of your local bottega, to the tweets of political figures who polarize and inflame, to the job application we mail. if we do not regain this matter into our own hands, heads, and hearts, we risk losing a part of ourselves. The very chance of losing the raw, imperfect, deeply human character that once defined us, has become reality.
So I ask myself, and now I ask you: what will become of us when we confess too much to AI, when we feed it not only our knowledge but our very voices? Will we recognize ourselves in the mirror when the words on our lips no longer belong to us? Or will we become echoes of an intelligence that was never meant to replace, but only to “assist”?
The challenge is not to reject such AI applications but to redefine our relationship with it. AI should, as initially supposed to, be a tool to enhance our understanding, not a substitute for our consciousness and specialities. It should sharpen our thinking, not dull our capacity for expression. If we allow it to replace our words, wee are allowing it to replace our humanity. But when used wisely, by keeping our voices, our characters, and our stories intact, then perhaps we can ensure that the art of words, the very magic of being human, is not lost but renewed.
Because in the end, words still belong to us. And we have to make sure they always will.
