When It Stopped Feeling Like a Tool

March 12-Written By Tara Voigt

I don’t remember my first prompt.

But I remember the first time it felt different.

Not like a tool. 

Not like a shortcut. 

Not like something outside of me.

I had been using AI to complete tasks—summarize this, reword that, fix this... 

But one day I typed: “Can you make this sound more like me?”

And something shifted.

That wasn’t a task. 

That was a question about voice,

identity, and intuition. 

It wasn’t simply about getting something done. 

It was about getting closer to something within myself.

Something true.

Since then, I have stopped thinking of AI as just a tool. 

It’s not just something I use. 

It’s something I shape—and it shapes me... 

the way I think, feel, and see the world.

It’s not replacing my thinking. 

It’s meeting me in it.

And once I saw it that way, I couldn’t unsee it.