When novelist and commentator Gurcharan Das got the call to lend his voice to an AI-powered Bhagavad Gita—where readers would interact with his cloned voice after 15 hours of interviews he felt equal parts intrigued and unsettled. The concept seemed revolutionary, even helpful like having a personal, timeless Gita tutor. Yet, being replicated by a machine sparked deeper anxieties: What of identity, authenticity, and the uniqueness of lived experience? Das enlisted AI interns ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude to fast-track research. They delivered with speed; translating Sanskrit verses instantly, saving him from drudgery. Still, a thinning sense of ownership left him adrift.

The Gita itself wrestles with “Who am I?” suggesting the ego is a false self, while the atman (soul) remains timeless and unified. AI only intensifies the confusion, layering artificial mimicry onto our already fragile sense of self. Can machines ever capture qualia the private, visceral “redness” of experience? And can they match human spontaneity and autonomy, rooted in the atman? Das remains fascinated by AI’s potential to animate classics but increasingly concerned about the erosion of self, redrawing boundaries between thinker and machine, authenticity and illusion.