2025 Essay Contest

Real or Fake?

Reflections on How We Experience Life in the AI Age

Shortlist

Countdown to the winners is around the corner! Here is the shortlist. Winners will be announced very soon. Please follow our announcements!

• Yahia Lababidi (What Cannot Be Outsourced)
• Sue Harris (Don’t Wake Up)
• Aleeza Rauf (I Fell in Love With A Lie)
• Nataša Vlčková (The Quiet Mirror)
• Noor Nildan (Earthling, Don’t Be Afraid, We Come in Peace)
• Jed Richardson (EuloGPT)
• Kudzanai Lucy Nemuramba (Fading Echoes)
• Fatimah Azzahra Ishak (Between Sidq and Simulation)
• Nina Bartolotta (The Social Dance)
• Jaymee Harper (From the Ashes)
• Sidra Noor (God of the 3 a.m.)
• Guneesh Jassi (When Truth Drowns)
• Hyomin Claire Yoo-Jin Y (Hesitation: Humanity’s Last Refuge in the Age of AI)
• Trang Nguyen (Hi AI, give me some AE!)
• Neda Petrovic (Homo Perditus)
• Arman Levonan (Humanity Behind the Glass Screen)
• Gale Ryan (I Miss the Dinosaurs)
• Jinisa “Jin” Srisujjalertwaja (Is That a Person)
• Josie Levin (It Is Not Alive)
• Jagriti Sharma (Real Is Fake and Fake Is Real)
• Leander P. E. Isler (Ghosts in the Machine)
• Khushi Kumari (AI- Real or Fake)
• Anwita D Pillai (A Love Letter to Human Error)
• Vince East (A Trivial Anomaly)
• Lily Tadevosyan (AI in Opposition to Reality)
• Nevelle Thomas (AI wrote an essay that was so perfect that I deleted it)
• Amna Majid (AI Revealed Who We Really Are)
• Annie Pardis (AI’s Cave)
• Destiny Hankerson (In the Age of AI, the Power Is in Our Hands – and Hearts!)
• Arnavi Rathore (Almost Real, A Heartbeat Beyond Code)
• Varsha Kolpe (Anchored in Light)
• Elena Zancanaro (Between the Glow and the Shadow)
• Sneha Parackal (Between Real and Fake Life in the AI Age)
• Margarette Gatchalian (Beyond the Checkbox)
• Lisa Parris (Caribbean Voices Offline: When AI Barely Knows We Exist)
• Róbert Csoma (Code Can’t Bleed)
• Saicharan Ritwik Chinni (The Floating Earring)
• Madalina Cara (Vanishing voices, and algorithms)
• Roa La (A Mafia Boss Among Us)
• Aeman Abbasi (Artificial Origins, Human Truths)
• Stefany Coching (The Beginnings of AI Uprising)
• Raphael Joseph D. Osano (The Cathedral I Found Inside a Typing Box at Midnight)
• Eiffel Aurora - Lucian (The Soul and the Algorithm)
• Divna Vuksanović (Fountain Philosophy: From Reflections in Water to Algorithmic Illusions)
• Alberte Kastrup (The Fragility of Real)
• Adie Tinyy (The Joke’s on Us, Or Is It)
• Hale Hayta (The Last Broadcast)
• Lawrencia Musona (The Loneliness Algorithm)
• Sarai Louis (The Oasis)
• Olesia Tsvientukh (The Things We Count in the Dark)
• Sindiswa Ndzinisa (The Virtual Heirloom)
• Lim Zhi Zenn (The World’s Most Treasured Robber)
• Dulaj Zahra (This is how I stayed)
• Tarun Mhanta (Through the Glass)
• Samina Misra (When Fake Feels Real)
• A Beneke (When the Mirror Learns to Lie)
• Sob Kamwa Francois (Whispers from the Cloud)
• Abdul-Wasiu Abdul-Ganiyy (Wired Illusion)
• Khamara Nicholson (Now I know what’s real, what’s fake)
• Jessica Reimer (Please Confirm You’re Not a Robot)
• Milanka Sulejic (Real or Fake)
• Maria Karabun (Reflection in the mirror)
• Miraal Omerkhawaja (The Age of Cognitive Surrender)
• Brighton Matereke (The AI Mirror)
• Clara Zhao (Love Me through the Screen)
• Kylee Perry (Memories Outlive Machines)
• Mileva Roumer (Now Featuring- Your Face Without You Beta Test My Soul)
• Mi Ainsel (Of Lies - Self, Doubt, and AI)
• Robert Hurtado (Permanently Impermanent: The Illusions We Live With)
• Darryl de Carteret (Real Mates, Artificial Friends and Growing Up Then and Living Now)
• Mercy Pam (Real or Fake)
• Haniya Wasim (Searching for What Is Real in an Age of Illusions)
• Maria Guia Lopez de Leon (Soft Launching My Soul in an AI World)
• Phoebe Amakiri (The Age of Almost)
• Sam Okwuoha (The Authenticity Paradox)
• Katim Touray (The Brushstroke and the Byte)
• Peter Kaitano (The Canvas of My Mind)
• Shivangi (The Counterfeit Nightingale and the Real Song)
• John Tommy (The Digital Echo)