--- title: AI may cost us our ability to listen, oral historian... description: Australian oral historian Shirleene Robinson, writing in The Guardian, argues that AI's biggest cultural cost may be eroding our ability to listen rather than... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/ai-may-cost-us-our-ability-to-listen-oral-historian-warns-in-the-guardian-jsgky9zo6 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: AI may cost us our ability to listen, oral historian warns in the Guardian | daily.dev og:description: Australian oral historian Shirleene Robinson, writing in The Guardian, argues that AI's biggest cultural cost may be eroding our ability to listen rather than... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/ai-may-cost-us-our-ability-to-listen-oral-historian-warns-in-the-guardian-jsgky9zo6 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/JsGKy9zO6.png og:image:alt: AI may cost us our ability to listen, oral historian warns in the Guardian og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # AI may cost us our ability to listen, oral historian warns in the Guardian **[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 2 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Australian oral historian Shirleene Robinson, writing in The Guardian, argues that AI's biggest cultural cost may be eroding our ability to listen rather than write. She cites University of Missouri-Kansas City and University of Arizona research showing daily speech fell from about 16,000 to 12,700 words between 2005 and 2019, with the steepest drop among people under 25. Drawing on her work leading the National Library of Australia's oral history collection (58,000+ hours of recordings since 1957), she warns that hearing people unlike ourselves builds empathy, and that this could be lost as people speak and listen less while turning to AI chatbots. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How much has daily speech declined between 2005 and 2019 according to research cited by the oral historian? Daily speech fell from about 16,000 words to around 12,700 words between 2005 and 2019, a drop of roughly 338 fewer words spoken per day for each year in that period, according to research by psychologists at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Arizona. People under 25 showed the steepest decline. The data covers mostly the US and Europe and predates widespread chatbot use. _Developers building conversational AI can explore the human-communication trends shaping this debate on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [AI may be making us think and write more alike](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-may-be-making-us-think-and-write-more-alike-u10sklhub) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Are AI chatbots making us lose control of our brains?](https://daily.dev/posts/are-ai-chatbots-making-us-lose-control-of-our-brains--4oezuox9w) · MIT Technology Review · 6 upvotes · 2 comments - [AI is becoming the record before we write the rules](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-is-becoming-the-record-before-we-write-the-rules-1qxh3pu0r) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [GUEST ESSAY: AI can speed up communication, but it can also weaken human connection](https://daily.dev/posts/guest-essay-ai-can-speed-up-communication-but-it-can-also-weaken-human-connection-vudsur81e) · Security Boulevard · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [AI is becoming a second brain at the expense of your first one](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-is-becoming-a-second-brain-at-the-expense-of-your-first-one-bbydrsqwl) · Stack Overflow Blog · 5 upvotes · 2 comments --- Tags: [#bots](https://daily.dev/tags/bots), [#ethical-ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ethical-ai) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-may-cost-us-our-ability-to-listen-oral-historian-warns-in-the-guardian-jsgky9zo6) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"AI may cost us our ability to listen, oral historian warns in the Guardian","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-may-cost-us-our-ability-to-listen-oral-historian-warns-in-the-guardian-jsgky9zo6","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-may-cost-us-our-ability-to-listen-oral-historian-warns-in-the-guardian-jsgky9zo6"},"datePublished":"2026-10-03T19:24:11.899Z","dateModified":"2026-10-03T19:24:28.204Z","description":"Australian oral historian Shirleene Robinson, writing in The Guardian, argues that AI's biggest cultural cost may be eroding our ability to listen rather than...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/9c12a5940862a7561ef0f81233909cd5?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/9c12a5940862a7561ef0f81233909cd5?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"The Next Web","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Next Web","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tnw","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-may-cost-us-our-ability-to-listen-oral-historian-warns-in-the-guardian-jsgky9zo6","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"bots,ethical-ai","timeRequired":"PT2M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Next Web","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"AI may cost us our ability to listen, oral historian warns in the Guardian"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-may-cost-us-our-ability-to-listen-oral-historian-warns-in-the-guardian-jsgky9zo6#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How much has daily speech declined between 2005 and 2019 according to research cited by the oral historian?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Daily speech fell from about 16,000 words to around 12,700 words between 2005 and 2019, a drop of roughly 338 fewer words spoken per day for each year in that period, according to research by psychologists at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Arizona. People under 25 showed the steepest decline. The data covers mostly the US and Europe and predates widespread chatbot use. Developers building conversational AI can explore the human-communication trends shaping this debate on daily.dev."}}]} ```