By Gayle Rogers
Publication Date: 2026-03-17 12:28:00
It’s a familiar feeling: You start a text message and your phone’s autocomplete feature suggests several options for the next word, ranging from the mundane to the hilarious. “I love…” you or coffee? Or you’re finishing an email and just type the word “Allow,” and your app will suggest “Let me know if you have any questions” in light gray text.
Predictive voice technologies have become so commonplace—integrated into smartphones, email services, and chatbots—that we hardly notice them anymore. But they raise a difficult question: What happens to a writer’s unique voice when AI routinely completes his thoughts — or generates them from scratch?
As the head of a large English department—and as a scholar researching the impact of predictive writing—I have seen firsthand the challenges that generative AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude pose to individual expression.
This technology has been integrated into the…
