They appeared like mushrooms after a rain. No announcement of their coming. No explanation. Like Stanley Kubrick’s monolith in the desert. No warning that they would promise to give us the world so they could take our jobs — our soul. Data centers — the home of artificial intelligence. I’m a television journalist, a narrator. That means I transform the written word into audio that matches the visuals. After a 60-year career I can count almost 1,000 such narrations across the broadcasting spectrum with emphasis on news, true crime programs, nature and special events. On Oct. 1 of this year, I received an email from a friendly viewer inquiring about a show on cable that she heard, writing, “the voiceover, I believe (is) artificial intelligence (AI), and it sounds, I mean, I don’t know if Bill Kurtis said that, great it’s awesome, I love him. And yet, I don’t know that that’s true, so I thought it was AI and I would inform him, because I don’t think that’s okay, replicate someone’s voice without their permission.” In a single sentence she captured a crisis in the