Say What?
Artificial intelligence dazzles with power yet falters where humanity most needs it. Nearly half of the world’s 7,000 languages risk extinction, and most lack the digital footprints AI depends on. Greece captures both sides of this paradox. Ancient Greek endures because poets and philosophers left a written legacy that algorithms can now read. Yet living dialects like Tsakonian and Romeyka fade in mountain villages and diaspora homes, their voices slipping beyond data’s reach. When a language dies, its worldview dies with it. AI cannot restore what was never recorded. Only teachers, linguists and communities can preserve the living pulse of speech that no model can replicate. Technology follows where human memory leads.
Giorgos Giannopoulos, Terrace of the Lions, Delos, 2010. Cyclades, Greece. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.