By Juda Maya Kotungondo
There was a time when writing an email was just writing an email. You opened a blank screen, typed your thoughts, reread them once or twice or maybe three times or perhaps you would consult a colleague or a friend for a second eye, and then you would hit send with a reasonable amount of confidence in that small act.
Now, something else happens, before the email goes out, there is a pause, a moment of doubt, a hesitation that feels almost automatic.
And then, almost instinctively, comes a consultation not with a colleague, not even with a trusted friend, but with an AI tool.
You paste your carefully crafted message into a machine and ask questions that would have seemed absurd not too long ago: Does this sound okay? Is this professional enough? Too harsh? Too soft? Could you improve it? What once was a simple act of communication has quietly transformed into something that feels more like a psychological feedback loop, a ritual of self-questioning amplified by algorithms.
And here’s the part that has been troubling me the most lately: even as I write these thoughts down right now, thoughts I believe in, thoughts I can articulate clearly, I still feel the urge to have AI approve them and get that validation and maybe I did or maybe I truly tried my utmost best not to. But that AI assurance that what I’m saying makes sense, that it lands the way I intend, that it is “good enough.” It is a strange feeling, almost unsettling, and yet it is familiar. I think, if we are honest with ourselves, many of us can relate. We do not lack the ideas or the skills; we do not struggle to articulate ourselves or to trust our grammar, punctuation, or phrasing. But we find ourselves leaning, almost reflexively, on the judgment of an AI tool.
Calling this “laziness” would, I think, be too simplistic. Laziness implies a lack of effort or care, and what is happening here is something far more nuanced. If anything, we care more now than ever before. We care more about how we are perceived, more about the subtle tone of our words, more about whether our message lands “correctly.” AI has transformed a once-private act of expression into a mediated exercise in approval-seeking, where it becomes both editor and silent judge.
Sometimes AI has its own ideas, and those can be amusing. I remember writing a quick email to a client last week to suggest a “coffee meeting next week” and asked AI to polish it.
The tool turned my simple, friendly line into: “I propose a caffeinated symposium to discuss our mutual strategic objectives in the upcoming temporal window.” I had to laugh part of me appreciated the creativity, but the other part realized: this is exactly the kind of voice that isn’t mine.
There is no denying that AI is incredibly useful. It saves time, it truly does. It helps non-native speakers craft messages that are more polished, more easily understood, and more socially acceptable.
It assists busy professionals in keeping up with the relentless pace of modern communication. It is a tool that, in countless ways, has genuinely made life easier, and for that, we should be grateful. This is not, in any sense, an argument against Artificial Intelligence.
My concern lies elsewhere: it lies in the subtle way we are outsourcing our voice without even realizing it. When every message is refined, optimized, neutralized, and “improved,” something delicate and vital is lost.
The slightly imperfect phrasing that carries personality and authenticity the little quirks that make your writing sound like you gets erased. We start to sound more polished, yes, but also more alike.
There is also a quiet dependency forming, one that I feel every day in the small decisions I make before hitting “send.” The more we rely on AI to validate our words, the less we trust our own instincts. Perhaps the deeper concern is not laziness, but comfort.
I am not complaining about comfort; I appreciate it from time to time. AI does make it easy to avoid the discomfort of uncertainty, easy to avoid fully owning our words, easy to hide behind something that feels safer, smarter, more socially acceptable.
But communication, at its core, was never meant to be flawless. It was meant to be human. There is immense value in sending an email as you wrote it, in letting your tone stand out, or even in letting it be imperfect at times.
Maybe the challenge for our generation isn’t learning how to use AI we have already mastered that. Maybe the challenge is knowing when to close the tab, take a deep breath, sit with the discomfort, and finally say: This is my voice and it is enough.
Because ultimately, the quiet erosion of our voice is not inevitable but only if we remember to speak, type, and express ourselves before asking the machine to approve it.
* Juda Maya Kotungondo is a political analyst and advocate for sustainable development, with a focus on diplomacy, international relations, and policy issues in the Global South.
