Last week, I got a message from someone I’ve known for ten years. It was articulate, thoughtful…and definitely not written by him.
It’s one example of what has increasingly unsettled me about the way people interact – myself included – as we all participate in this vast, unprecedented, AI-enhanced communication experiment.
It’s not just the style of communication that’s changed. It’s the sense of authorship. The idea that you can read something and know who wrote it—and whether they meant it—feels like it’s breaking down.
It shows up everywhere – emails, text messages, social media, blog posts, even casual check-ins. A few weeks ago, I opened a message that seemed technically perfect – well-structured, insightful, sophisticated. But I couldn’t tell if the sender had written it, prompted it, pasted it – or even read it. And I wasn’t sure what to respond to, or how.
What part was real?
What part was meant?
