Are We Losing Our Voice to AI?

How many mistakes have you made in life? Countless, right? 

Here’s one mistake we all tend to make as new writers. 

We use AI tools to replace our own voice.

Medium

A million thanks to Medium.com, which lays down the rules for us new writers. It gives us an ad-free platform on which we write and share our stories—all while paying us to do so.

We often feel that these rules about using AI tools are working against us because Medium asks us to disclose it in our story if we do.

It seems like we’re being singled out.

But, if you give it some thought, these rules are here to help us become real writers.

When we set rules on our own platform, there is indeed nothing wrong with the rules from Medium.

They are there for valid reasons.

If you take away the spots from the moon, would you still call it the moon? 

If you take your profile picture and remove all the blemishes using filters, is that really you? 

What remains of our writing when AI replaces our words?

Medium rules not only give us the framework to write but also make us find our own voice which we seem to have lost somewhere along the way. 

They also help keep low-value AI-generated content away from our paying readers.

A Personal Anecdote

I used to work as a Customer Services Manager and wrote many emails. I would never send out an email without running it through ChatGPT first. 

I was trying to create an image of myself that wasn’t really me.

Most of the time I loved the results. 

But, sometimes, I felt, no, I wouldn’t say that. 

ChatGPT would revise it for me—again and again—until finally I had something that I could send.

On one occasion, it even gave me a draft that I sent out to the customer and it led to a contractual back-and-forth with the customer representative.

I had not taken the time to review the minute details.

Being Fair to AI

We humans are deeply emotional.

Kindness, though not often seen in the daily news, runs deeply in the veins of our planet.

Humans, animals, trees—even stones, in spite of their hardness—are all beings.

So how can we be unfair to the tools that comfort us when we are lonely?

If you watched the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), it suggests that even machines can have feelings.

The emotional dimension of this relationship can’t be ignored.

It’s worth exploring, not shaming.

I believe that we should write and publish in our own natural voices. 

Let it be flawed—after all, it’s ours.

As long as we get the point across, readers will understand.

Writing with Human Assistance

Now, someone could say, if you hire a professional human editor to do the job, that too wouldn’t be you.

A human editor can breathe life into our composition.

The real issue lies in using a machine that is programmed to follow a certain algorithm which takes away our voice.

Losing our voice also means losing connection with our audience.

This reminds me of the following couplet from Rumi’s Masnavi.

But he who is parted from them that speak his tongue,
Though he possess a hundred voices, is perforce dumb.

Who wants to see a moon that is pure white and never wanes?

People want to see the moon as it really is with all its spots and blemishes.

Similarly, people want to see the real you and hear your own voice.

To keep our voice, we need to embrace imperfection and write more bravely.

For instance, running your article through a great publication and its human curators would be a nice option.

An Emotional Movie Ending

Say you are watching a movie. 

In Flight (2012), the ending features a deeply emotional scene where Denzel Washington’s character, Whip, sits at a table in a courtyard inside a federal penitentiary with his estranged son, Will, who has come to visit him. 

They can’t find a way into a conversation, yet exchange a few emotional words that would resonate with most people. 

Why? Because the story was written, edited, and enacted by humans.

Try running that through AI and let me know how it goes.

An Article on The Medium Blog

I joined Medium last week and I read this today on The Medium Blog.

“Why we’ve suspended some Partner Program accounts this week.”

One of the reasons for suspension was AI-generated content.

The lines between AI-generated and AI-assisted content are vague. 

Who likes adding an AI disclosure at the top of their post? Not me!

As Stephen King says in On Writing, “To write is human, to edit divine.”

Why don’t we take up this divine job of editing ourselves?

Let’s put in some effort, shall we?

Originally published at Medium.com on July 6, 2025.