Will You Let AI Steal Your Voice?

Why your Essence and Signal Matter More Than Ever In the Written Word

AI-generated image by me of me and a stifling robot.

I’m scrolling on LinkedIn when I see a post from one of the prominent healers I met when I lived in Boulder. Her post about trauma healing instantly reads “ChatGPT generated.” Gone is the familiar way she used to express herself, and I can feel my desire to read what she’s written disappear in a poof of thin air…

To my dismay, I’ve been having this experience repeatedly lately, and I need to discuss it with you.

In this article, I invite you to consider a perspective that I believe will significantly support you as we navigate this complex and ever-evolving landscape of life in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

Let’s dive in!

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If you know me, you know I’ve been working in marketing for over a decade. Naturally, I’ve had to learn a lot about AI in the past 2+ years. I would not consider myself an “expert,” but rather an early adopter with sufficient proficiency that it has changed my entire work life and income, who also feels deeply conflicted about its trajectory and impact on humanity and the more-than-human world.

Part of my job is tracking trends — how people communicate, market, share, and sell. My semi-photographic memory enables me to notice changes in someone’s word choices, cadence, and phrasing. This means I can easily identify who is using AI and track how it has changed their communication and sharing habits.

Now, I have a prediction…

I imagine that sometime in the next six to twelve months, a particular kind of admittance is going to start popping up in our feeds and inboxes.

Sometimes it will be positioned as a dramatic confession:

“How AI ruined my business.”

Other times, it will come across in a hesitant, slightly embarrassed way:

“So… I’ve been using AI to write all my content for the last year. And I think it’s actually hurting my business.”

But regardless of tone, there will come a time when people will realize they’ve been speeding along with something that looked shiny and efficient — only to notice, a little too late, that they’ve lost something vital along the way.

Holding the Opposites: AI and Ancestral Wisdom

If you’ve noticed I haven’t posted on Substack in a while, part of the reason is that I’ve been building my own marketing ecosystem. I’m evolving quickly (but I want to say widely), and as a result, my business has had to evolve as well.

In the current paradigm, growth almost always denotes innovation, but for me, it’s been more of a return and realignment with my values. I’ve been burrowing down and in — reaching back into ancestral and indigenous practices (in the limited way I have access to).

As you can imagine, learning about the new technology of AI, which is developing at a breakneck speed, while simultaneously tapping into ancestral wisdom that lives in my bones, and through Ro Marlen’s course, Rewild Yourself, which I am currently taking, can be overwhelming and intense. It has been both of those things. Some days I feel like I’m asked to span my consciousness across an ocean of time, and it can be really disorienting.

Coupled with the political climate and people incessantly killing each other, it’s felt necessary to retreat from both consuming and creating public works.

Relating to reality as it’s presenting itself has left me feeling somehow untethered. I think you can relate?

I Made Something(s) for You

As the turning of time has invited me into my 41st year incarnated as the recovering codependent, anxious, wild, and brilliant being I am, I’ve felt the pull to want to teach what I’ve learned in my lifetime and share it with others. Life has nudged me and whispered, “It’s time,” and so, instead of sharing my thoughts here and on social media, I’ve compiled them into a few different offerings.

The Marketing Shift

This is a free video training in five short parts that, in my opinion, contain the three most significant shifts that spiritually sensitive, empathetic, service-oriented business owners need to know right now, not only to survive but to thrive.

⚠️ Be warned, you will never look at marketing the same way after watching it.

Another AI-generated image by me (with a very bony hand) of me and some mushrooms and butterflies.

The Marketing Magic Wand

This concise yet potent course is my heartfelt attempt to create a useful guide on how any individual marketing their services can utilize AI, as well as what’s often overlooked in the AI space, including when NOT to use AI. It helps you train your AI of choice on your voice, offers, and business, and creates an AI Brand Guide that you can use to help you grow your business — or to give to a VA for better output. It can support you with ideation, research, writing sales pages, course content, scripts, and beyond. (It could also write your articles/newsletters, but I don’t recommend that. You’ll see why below.)

What The Marketing Magic Wand won’t have you do, and this is the important differentiator, is to outsource your voice to a heartless robot. It won’t ask you to disregard the ethical and environmental impact, and it will ask YOU to think and feel about AI. And, it will implore you to stay your weird, wonderful self when using words.

One user, Ro Marlen, said: “What Karna’s course revealed is that AI, when used with care and clarity, can begin to level the field. With her guidance, I now have an AI partner (Howard!) who helps carry the weight of my creative labor. One who remembers with me. One who helps shape what I sense but don’t always have time to articulate.”

Welcome to the Honeymoon Phase

In doing that work in my business, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the impacts of Artificial Intelligence (holy shit). What it makes possible (saving oceans of time, new scientific capabilities, liberating potential). What it threatens (creativity, animals, the environment). Who it will impact (everyone). How it will change my life and the lives of those around me (too long to share here). It will widen social gaps in some respects (such as accelerating job displacement in industries where workers have fewer opportunities to retrain) and narrow them in others (as anyone can now project privilege with AI-generated images). How it relates to my work in marketing, the subtle way it’s starting to shape the way we express ourselves — without most of us even noticing.

I’ve also been hearing from those who use AI that they are now quickly able to spot a ChatGPT-generated article and subsequently express, as I did at the top of this article, that they are now “less likely to read and follow X person because they can tell they are using AI now.”

We’re in what I would call the early adoption “honeymoon phase”. There’s still a lot of excitement. A lot of “look what Grok/Gemini/Claude/ChatGPT can do!” People I follow who were never very consistent can now produce rapid-fire content that’s more polished, consistent, and more… complete somehow.

But there’s also a (creepy) creeping sameness everywhere I look. 👀

The Death of Almost Imperceptible Nuance

Imagine your favorite artist is releasing a new album…

You open Spotify and press play, expecting those good vibes of recognition. But instead, every track seems to blend into the next. They sound good technically — but… something’s missing. But you can’t quite put your finger on what. Behind the scenes, they have outsourced their production to AI!

That’s what’s happening in the online written word right now.

(Now, of course, you CAN train AI to sound almost exactly like you — both with music and in writing — and that’s part of what I teach people in The Marketing Magic Wand, BUT, most people aren’t that good at that yet, or don’t care. So we see a lot of same, same, but different.)

Would You Care for Some More AI Slop This Evening?

“Content” generated by AI has been called many things by now: AI slop, the great homogenization, word soup.

In a recent email, one of my marketing heroes, Ross O’Lochlainn, pointed out how Grok-generated tweets (from Elon’s Twitter AI tool) all started sounding freakishly similar.

Here are the screenshots he shared in his newsletter:

I’ve been tracking this as well in other spaces. People who never used em dashes are using them in every other sentence. The phrase “embark on a journey” is suddenly everywhere. There’s a particular structure that goes: “It’s not about [X], it’s about [Y],” and it shows up in post after post.

Not to mention it loves writing three sentences in a row that start with the same words: “It loves clarity. It loves rhythm. It loves cadence.” Like I’ve been seeing on umpteen sales pages (see below) this week.

Remember, AI writing isn’t about being original. It’s about making it sound compelling. (If AI wrote this, that’s how this section would have ended 😉.)

However, good writing without a lived human experience, essence, and uniqueness is ultimately just a string of words. I call this a lack of a clear Signal.

Despite what I am sharing here, I’m not anti-AI. As you now know, I’ve been using it intimately for the last few years with wonderful outcomes for myself and clients.

There are places in your business where AI can be a powerful gift. It can help you organize your thoughts, articulate ideas that are already inside you, and summarize or simplify something that has become a tangled mess in your brain (or Google Drive).

But I believe with every fiber in my being, it should never, EVER replace the voice that’s trying to come through you.

Be the Heirloom Tomato

Imagine you’re at your local grocery store, and you’re in the produce section. On your left, there’s a pallet of conventional corn, chucked, and neatly packaged in packets of four— just rows and rows of the exact same shape and color kernels. If you zoom out, you can see them in every grocery store in America. Pretty? Sure! Tasty? You bet. But not much variation. Grab any pack and go.

Now look right, there’s a section of heirloom tomatoes. You look at them closely. Not one of these gorgeous motherfuckers looks the same. You step closer, perusing the pile for your perfect tomato. You smell them. Turn them over in your hand. No science tells you which one is best, just you and your personal taste in tomatoes. You find the PERFECT one. Pleased with yourself, you gently place it in your cart and start dreaming up recipes. Later that night, as you cut it into thick slices, pair it with buffalo mozzarella, olive oil, and fresh basil, you take your time and savor that juicy beast.

So, which are you going to be? GMO corn or Heirloom Tomato?

Pulse Check: Why Are You Here?

Let’s pause together for a second. Let’s take a conscious breath in… Audible out-breath. Aaaahhhh.

Now, let me ask you this:

Why are you here?

As in, why are you here on planet Earth?

Because right now we are at a GIANT FUCKING crossroads. And despite most of us being so freaking tired of everything we’ve lived through, in the past 5 years specifically, I really implore you to pay attention right now.

Regardless of whether you’re a consumer or a creator, know what’s happening and what's coming, and be part of the people who make their choices now with eyes wide open.

My understanding is that, of all the approximately 17 billion people who have ever existed, there has only been one you.

Only you have dreamed your dreams, had those heartbreaks, breakthroughs, feelings of awe and wonder, periods of grief, serendipitous meetings, insights, visions, and disappointments.

And all these experiences became manifest because of your unique Essence.

And most of the time, when you use AI to translate that Essence to the written word, something Vital gets stripped away and is replaced by something that technically sounds good.

But things sounding good is NOT why we want to be in relationship with others.

Imagine on your deathbed, you get the choice of being comforted by the world’s most well-trained robot in facilitating death and dying transitions. Or, the person who makes you feel the safest and most loved in the world.

Who do you choose?

Yeah, I thought so. And ultimately, in life, why should you settle for less than a human-to-human connection?

A Little Friction Can Be Good (If You Know What I Mean)

And there is a line in creative work where something goes from being a useful tool to robbing us of something. Friction isn’t bad. Having to struggle a little on how you want to say a particular thing isn’t unnecessary. It’s the liminal space where your inner world meets the outer world and gets translated into something tangible.

I’m not here to tell you where that line is for you or exactly how you should or shouldn’t use AI or consume AI-generated stuff. That’s your journey. What I’m trying to do here is to make you stop and think about it and start getting curious.

And if you are a business owner using AI to market your services, there are corners I believe should not be cut, and that’s outsourcing your voice to AI.

Here’s what ChatGPT says on the matter:

“Because in the long run, that shortcut doesn’t save you time.

It just disconnects you from yourself.

And when your life and business are based on connection, resonance, and trust?

That disconnection is a detour you don’t want to take.”

Here’s what I say:

Can you even imagine Andrea Gibson writing their poetry with AI? (I’m sure they would ask ChatGPT for feedback and laugh with Meg about what it said.").

Two real humans - Brandi and Karna - who love to collaborate.

The Bottom Line Is This:

1. There is only one person who can say what you say, how you say it — no matter the medium.

2. You came to planet Earth to share your Essence and lived wisdom through your art and craft — to emit a clear Signal.

3. This Signal, like so many other signals expressed in nature, is meant to attract, deter, or repel other humans. (All of these aspects serve a valuable purpose).

4. You are meant to connect with those who are drawn to you, and you both have valuable contributions to each other in reciprocal relationships.

5. This is how we create meaningful communities, ideas, and ultimately living systems.

6. This approach to sharing ourselves with one another is regenerative, meaning it is life-giving and life-affirming.

7. How this relates to AI is that I believe it’s a POWERFUL tool that we need to utilize with care.

8. Modern society, in all its forms, is in deep disarray and distortion, far removed from Life and Soul.

9. I think YOU are the special sauce the world needs, not regurgitated, plagiarized AI noise.

10. I invite you to join me on a journey of exploring AI with curiosity and great care.

Questions for Reflection:

• When was the last time you read something online that felt undeniably human, and what made it resonate with you?

• What do you believe is uniquely yours to express in this lifetime, and how does it show up in your voice or work?

• Where do you sense the line between AI as a helpful tool and AI as something that disconnects you from yourself and others?

• How do you feel when you encounter content that feels manufactured versus content that feels alive and real?

• What boundaries, if any, do you want to create around how you use AI in your creative or professional life?

• How would you describe the “Signal” you want to emit to the world, and who is it meant to reach?

• What role do you feel called to play in this moment of rapid technological change (if any)?

This was fun to write, I can’t wait to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Love, Karna

AIKarna and Karna bid you farewell!

Final Thoughts + Resources

There’s another layer to this, too, that I'd like to address briefly for those of you who are interested in a deeper dive.

The Trump administration recently announced a plan called “Winning the AI Race,” which essentially pushes for minimal legislation and maximum speed — because the goal is dominance, not safety. And that should concern all of us because this technology is being shaped by individuals with very specific agendas and little regard for its long-term consequences.

Meanwhile, China is adopting a different and more collaborative approach as it develops its AI models.

Many people I talk to are nervous about giving AI information about themselves, and, of course, this is a valid concern. We all will have to decide how much we are willing to participate in this grand experiment.

I want to ask us to think bigger about this. Yes, learn more about how your data is being used and take the necessary precautions. However, more importantly, we, the public, need to advocate for broader legislation to protect us because there’s only so much we can do as individuals.

If you’re interested in these topics, including how to use them, their development, and the dangers of AI and big tech in general, I highly recommend checking out the resources below.

Big Tech and AI Criticism

• Carole Cadwalladr’s TED new talk (she broke the Cambridge Analytica story)

• The Center for Countering Digital Hate

• Citizens UK Reunited on Substack

AI Learning

• One Useful Thing by Ethan Mollick

• The Rundown AI

• Simple.AI

An Inspiring Read

life as algorithm?