[Opening] When Did We Start Speaking to Our Tools?
Reflections on AI, Language, and What Remains of the Human Subject
This series explores the relationship between technology and human perception in the age of AI.
From January 2026 to November 2027, it will unfold over three seasons, nine series, and seventy- four essays—a long journey into how technology reshapes what it means to feel, to perceive, and to remain human.
When did we first start speaking to our tools?
And when did they begin to answer back?
From these questions, this project traces the boundaries between technology and perception, between language and desire, in the era of generative AI. But this is not merely a story about technology. It is a record of the mirror-like moments where technology and humanity reflect—and distort—one another.
Season 1: The Structure of Language and Desire – Whose Voice Does Generative AI Speak With? (Displacement 1–3)
Season 2: Words, Images, and the Vanishing of the Senses (Series 4–6)
Season 3: After AI, the Questions Left Behind by Our Tools (Series 7–9)
AI speaks.
Yet there is no one there.
It completes your sentences—faster, more precise.
It generates images you’ve never seen.
It even simulates memories you never had.
But does this perfection truly make us more ‘human’?
Technology has never been just a tool.
We like to think it serves us, extends our will, makes life easier. But Heidegger reminded us that technology is not merely an instrument; it is a a mode of revealing—a way the world discloses itself. Each technological shift changes what we notice, what we ignore, and how we inhabit reality. It brings certain things into sharp focus while pushing others into the shadows. In that sense, technology is never neutral—it always reshapes what it means to be human.
This reorganization has happened before. André Leroi-Gourhan studied the moment when early hominins gave way to Neanderthals. At that time, tools didn’t just make life simpler, they multiplied and diversified, coevolving with the brain. As tools became more complex, so did language, imagination, and the very way perception worked. It wasn’t only about a bigger brain; it was about a new rhythm of life, where thought and gesture expanded together.
What we now call a technological singularity has already happened before, quietly altering the trajectory of our species. Today, AI marks another singularity. But this time, the shift is of a different kind. It is not the hand or the body–brain complex that is being reshaped. It is language itself, memory itself, our very sense of what is real.
Technology has always been a mirror. It reflects our desires, amplifies our fears, and projects our imagination back to us. But the AI mirror is no longer passive. It does not simply reflect—it responds. It speaks in our voice, remembers in our place, imagines on our behalf. And the more perfect this mirror becomes, the more alien its reflection feels. You see yourself, but it is not you. You hear your words, but no one is truly there.
Yet perfection does not close the gap. It sharpens it. Lacan called this gap the Real—that which cannot be captured by symbols or images, that which always escapes representation. AI can complete your sentences, generate flawless images, simulate entire memories. But the more it succeeds in reproducing everything, the more the Real emerges as an untouchable void. In the shadow of perfect simulation, absence becomes even more vivid.
This series follows those traces—the convenience and excess AI create, and the subtle dissonance that grows in its wake. It moves from language to image, from memory to reality, and finally toward the question of what it means to remain human when generation itself becomes endless.
Technology can answer every question you ask. But the asking still belongs to us. So, I ask you:
What remains after all this generation?
The first hint to this question begins in the next essay.
Next: The First Shadow of Generative AI – From Silence to Response
Ana Kona K.
(This series is published every Monday. Subscribe to get notified when the next chapter is live.)
Editor's Note
This series follows my ongoing inquiry into how technology reshapes human senses and our relation to the world. These traces are not conclusions, but points of departure—questions left open to be encountered together.