Oral Historian Shirleene Robinson Warns AI and Declining Speech Threaten Human Listening
As daily speech drops and chatbots offer synthetic empathy, former National Library of Australia oral history head Shirleene Robinson argues interpersonal listening is at risk.
While public debate over artificial intelligence frequently centers on the erosion of writing skills, Australian oral historian Shirleene Robinson warns that the deeper loss may be human listening, according to a report by The Next Web (https://thenextweb.com/news/ai-ability-to-listen-oral-historian-robinson) discussing her commentary in The Guardian.
Robinson argues that interpersonal conversation is already shrinking even as conversational AI systems market rapid answers and simulated empathy. Engaging with unfamiliar viewpoints and entering different worlds remains fundamental to humanity, Robinson wrote, noting that empathy relies on hearing directly from others.
To highlight the underlying decline in verbal interaction, Robinson pointed to research by psychologists at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the University of Arizona. According to figures released by the University of Arizona, individuals spoke roughly 338 fewer words per day each year between 2005 and 2019. Across that window, average daily spoken output fell from approximately 16,000 words to around 12,700 words, with participants under 25 recording the steepest decline.
The researchers drew data primarily from subjects in the United States and Europe through 2019, documenting a reduction in spoken dialogue that preceded the widespread rollout of modern conversational AI chatbots.
Robinson led the oral history collection team at the National Library of Australia from 2018 to early 2024. The archive spans more than 58,000 hours of audio recordings dating back to 1957, including testimonies from Stolen Generations members, First Nations Australians recounting deep history, a refugee who fled Vietnam by sea, and a Darwin physician who survived Cyclone Tracy.
Listening to people with different lived experiences builds empathy, Robinson argued, warning that diminished interpersonal speech and listening will represent society's most severe loss if conversational habits continue to erode.
Sources
Written by
The Company Wire
Inside the companies building what’s next. Reporting on startups, technology, funding and the people shaping them.
