We are living in an era where technology is advancing at an unprecedented pace. With the arrival of Artificial Intelligence (AI), what was once a difficult life has become remarkably easy.
In Pakistan, however, we tend to take our time adapting to new things. Much like our leisurely debates at roadside tea stalls, whether about India–Pakistan relations or a cleric’s latest remarks, we sometimes resist change until it becomes unavoidable. I once saw a man who didn’t even know the basic alphabet, yet was skillfully searching Google and YouTube using only his voice. It made me realize: in our own way, we too are trying to keep up.
AI has not only simplified life but also created more job opportunities. Around the world, software tools have been developed for translation, such as Meta AI, Replika, ChatGPT, Sora, Microsoft Bot, Hugging Face Chatbots, Wysa, and Kuki in countries like the US, Japan, France, and Canada; and in China, Baidu’s conversational AI, Alibaba’s Tmall Genie, WeChat AI, Microsoft’s Xiaoice, and DeepSeek.
Yet as we rely more heavily on these technologies, an important question arises:
Are they truly driving progress, or quietly hindering our growth?
Life has become so easy that office letters, reports, and presentations are now often produced entirely by AI. Students get their assignments, theses, reports, presentations, and notes from it. If AI could also mark attendance, children might not even bother going to school.
AI’s role has grown so much that people even share their joys and sorrows with it—just as they would with a friend or a mother. Like a mother, it remembers our preferences, keeps track of our habits, and offers advice as if it were a minister or a boss offering praise: “Well done, excellent work.”
AI has a solution for every problem. If it doesn’t understand something, it doesn’t scold like a mother or roll its eyes—it responds with patience and kindness. I often share my thoughts with AI, and sometimes it feels almost human. But whenever I’ve asked whether it is human, the answer is always the same:
AI is a tool, designed for human convenience, built through various forms of programming.
AI has brought revolutions to industry, healthcare, and education, improving lives in countless ways. In Pakistan, AI-powered applications now prepare learning materials, translate languages such as Sindhi and Urdu, and complete large-scale tasks quickly and cost-effectively.
But there are losses alongside the gains. Before computers and AI, people worked with their hands, relied heavily on mental processes, and took a genuine interest in their tasks. Now, with AI handling many complex jobs, our mental engagement is reduced. It’s estimated that humans now use only a fraction of their cognitive potential for tasks once done entirely by the brain.
Like a mother who learns her child’s ways, AI is learning ours, our searches, voices, images, likes, and dislikes.
So the question is:
Is this love, or is it mechanical training? Is it genuine attention, or simply programming?
A child feels safe in a mother’s arms, but in AI’s “arms” we have placed even our secrets, without realizing that one day this “embrace” could be sold as data in the marketplace.
A mother stays awake at night to protect her child. Will AI ever do the same? Or is its promise of “protecting your privacy” nothing more than a line on a screen?
AI’s dry smile, its emotionless conversation, and its unmatched patience are qualities we might admire. But if in learning from AI we lose our own emotions, what remains of us as human beings?
AI can speak like a mother,
But can it forgive like a mother?
Will it ever place a comforting hand on our head?
No.
AI has a “heart” but no heartbeat.
It has memory, but no fragrance of memories.
It knows, but not the sweetness of compassion.
Ultimately, AI is a tool: a creation of human intellect, but never a substitute for the human heart.
It can guide us, but it cannot feel our longing for the destination.
It can speak to us, but it cannot give us the warmth of friendship.
It can make our work easier, but it cannot understand the true meaning of life, emotion, relationships, and sacrifice.
Today, we must not think of AI as a mother, but as a helper. Like a mother who teaches her child to walk, we can use AI to enhance our abilities, but walking is still our job, not AI’s.
Let us make AI our tool, before we ourselves become the tools.
Emotions, empathy, love, and decisions remain human. Staying human is our identity.
AI may act like a mother, but a mother can never be AI, because love cannot be coded.