Real or Fake?

Reflections on How We Experience Life in the AI Age

“The picture reflects all the instructions. But something looks off, though I’m not so sure what it is.”

“The script is quite good. But why is it repetitive?”

“What a tragedy! But hold on, is this news real?”

New AI technologies have introduced amazing capabilities for content creation – beyond what we could have imagined. We are all excited to produce scripts, illustrations, videos, and so much more with this constantly evolving cutting-edge technology at the tip of our fingers.

But do they feel as genuine as we would normally expect? Do we feel the same sense of fulfilment or claim ownership as we otherwise would? Immersed in our screens, how real—or fake—does life feel? Do our relationships matter at all? How real are our friendships with others?

Participate in the contest and share your reflections.

• Submissions to be posted: July 1, 2025 – September 30, 2025
• Contest open to all writers worldwide
• Ideal word count to be between 1,500 and 2,500
• For submissions: CLICK TO SUBMIT YOUR ESSAY

Cash prizes

• 1st Place – $1,000
• 2nd Place – $500
• 3rd Place – $300
• Two Honorable Mentions – $150 each

Frequently Asked Questions

• THEME
• REFERENCES
• WORD COUNT
• STYLE
• PUBLISHING
• NUMBER OF ENTRY
• DISQUALIFICATION
• EVALUATION
• SUBMISSION
• DEADLINE
• ELIGIBILITY

THEME

What qualifies a good essay?

An essay that you feel your heart rests more comfortably on. The more concise an essay, the more acceptable it is. Its authenticity and uniqueness, and how elaborately you put your theme into words so that others are inspired from it.

REFERENCES

Do we have to include references, bibliography, notes, etc. as in an academic journal?

The Fountain is not a journal. Thus, we do not expect a full scale reference list for all the information you provide. But, we encourage contributors to provide at least a reasonable number of references (not more than four or five) especially for the arguments borrowed from other sources, as it would make your work more reliable. If the kind of information you provide needs citation, please provide it; but essays with lengthy references are not preferred. Some reference and recommendations for further reading may help readers who are interested in the essay. Accuracy of data is expected in essays in which information provided needs sourcing. An essay based on personal experience does not require citation, and it is equally acceptable.

WORD COUNT

Does the word count limit include the bibliography or just the essay itself?

The Fountain is not a full-scale academic journal, so we expect authors to keep references to a maximum of four or five. Notes can be more. References and notes do not make a big change in word count which is advised to be between 1,500 and 2,500. A range is always necessary to be able to have an objective measure in terms of size.

STYLE

What kind of writing style do you expect? Can we use informal phrases? Is this essay supposed to be a personal opinion piece, or more of a scholarly supported article?

In writing style, we mainly seek consistency. We prefer the Chicago Manual of Style, but if you are more familiar with another style, that is also acceptable. Some informal usage can be OK in a certain essay, but not in another. It is basically the author’s call.

Would an essay in the short story genre qualify for the contest?

As long as your theme is skillfully woven through its structure, and if it upholds The Fountain’s values and principles, yes.

PUBLISHING

Are you going to publish submitted essays anywhere?

We might publish submissions in The Fountain, both the print and web editions, even if the essays did not win any prize. Other entrants may also be offered publication. Although by submitting your essay to this contest, you agree that you give permission to The Fountain to publish it in any medium, this does not restrict authors from withdrawing from The Fountain should they not win, and they are free to submit it elsewhere. Be advised to notify The Fountain in advance so your submission is removed.

NUMBER OF ENTRY

Can I submit more than one essay?

No. One entry per person.

DISQUALIFICATION

What makes an essay disqualified?

• Offensive and devotional essays — particularly essays that emphasize superiority of a specific worldview or derogating a specific worldview—will be disqualified. Essays that “propagate” a certain spiritual order, a religious denomination, a spiritual leader, or a political activist, etc. in a way that subordinates all other faiths and traditions are considered devotional and will be disqualified.
• Title is missing – Do not forget to put a title. Titles are important for readers and reviewers to see what lies in the center of your message. Missing title will disqualify your submission.
• Submissions already published elsewhere are not accepted.

EVALUATION

Who will determine the winners? Can you explain more specifically what you are looking for in a winner?

The winners will be determined by our board who will decide according to the literary effectiveness of the essay in reflecting the philosophy behind the motto, richness in content, and authenticity.

All submitted essays will be evaluated using the following criteria.

1. Relevance to the contest theme (40 points)
2. Innovation & creativity (30 points)
3. Writing style and structure (30 points)

SUBMISSION

How am I going to submit my essay?

For submissions: CLICK TO SUBMIT YOUR ESSAY

DEADLINE

When is the last day for submissions?

September 30, 2025

ELIGIBILITY

Who is eligible to participate in this contest?

There is no age limit or a condition to fulfill for entry. The contest is open to all who want to share his or her ideas with us.

As AI is moving up in the ladder of prominence in our lives, we inevitably receive more contemplative pieces that explore this new phenomenon submitted to The Fountain for publication. Here comes one such contribution by Dr. Mehmet Orhan who explains the origins of AI research that dates back to the 1940s, and how it has evolved to what it is today. Major corporations invest hundreds of billions of dollars in AI research and development, hiring thousands of experts. Orhan also goes into the ultimate topic of curiosity: human intelligence vs. artificial intelligence. Amidst many overwhelming debates about potential scenarios that pit machines at war against humanity, Orhan’s comments provide a nourishing perspective, positioning the human brain and AI technologies in their respective roles, offering a foundation for healthy conversations about our future.

When talking about the human brain, one popular phenomenon to consider is “multitasking.” Many believe we should have multitasking skills to land a job or finish up our duties on time. Matt Alley challenges readers in this matter and is asking whether multitasking is really possible or not. Many tasks we assume we are doing simultaneously are actually muscle memory, not actions performed with conscious thought. Similarly, tasks completed in their own time are not a product of multitasking. Alley’s article offers an introductory perspective on multitasking in this issue of The Fountain. In the next issue, he will explain further in a follow-up article.

The AI revolution is huge, but human history is filled with countless turning points where opportunities met risks and expansions were followed by destruction, or the other way around. For humankind to rise back on its feet, we have always needed to disperse the sense of despair that paralyzed our society. The lead article in this issue is depicting how pessimistic perspectives do not help at all, and that any speech or effort to weaken people’s determination to rise from they fell is “betrayal.” Gülen speaks of youth who “have been confined to a three-dimensional space and a dull, colorless, single dimension of time, disconnected from both the past and the future.” Although this article was originally written decades ago, Gülen writes as if he had foreseen the youth of today, spending their days sitting across their computer screens, like captives to the artificial world within. His article “Overcoming Despair” is mapping out a reliable guideline for our society to remain alive.

One strange thing about time is that it passes quickly, especially when we’re enjoying it! Or rather, that’s how we it feels. Think about summer: when we are just about to make the best of it, we start seeing “back to school” shopping ads everywhere. For many of us over a certain age, life feels like an unfulfilled summer that is about to end, and we start seeing signposts to another life. How should we, then, make the best of the time we are given in this life? In the lead article, Fethullah Gülen gives a sense of how true believers perceive time, whether it is summer or winter, and the inspirations “beyond time and space” they get from it. For him, time is always “fascinating,” “magical,” and “adorned with wonders.” For time to be perceived as such, intentions and perspectives need to be adjusted to the way of true believers; otherwise, the magic they feel cannot be described to someone who has never experienced time the way they do.

The Humanity of Muhammad has been a bestseller since it was released in 2020. Written by Dr. Craig Considine, many readers have found the Prophet as portrayed in this book as someone not confined to seventh century Arabia but still relevant in the twenty-first century—and not only to Muslims but to all mankind. Teaching sociology at Rice University, Dr. Considine has been very visible on social media with his eye-opening posts about the life of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, who is still relatively unknown—or even worse, known wrongly—in the West and among Muslims. The Fountain interviewed Dr. Considine about his exceptional work.

When the same Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, who brought so much light to this world, passed away in 632 CE, so much was lost. Despite a fantastic generation of believers that formed around him, his death was followed by a vacuum of authority and disagreements that emerged among some of his companions. Selcuk Camci gives a convincing account of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s analyses of these heartbreaking political events that caused schisms among Muslims that continue until today.

In the present day, AI continues to intrigue us. One interesting potential contribution of AI would be to provide companionship to those who are lonely. Loneliness has come to be recognized as a major health problem, potentially contributing to depression, obesity, dementia, and even early death for many. The preliminary results of research conducted with companion robots show that “amiable androids help reduce stress and even promote skin healing.” Loneliness is an epidemic, especially among the elderly, and we need to find healing solutions, whether it is through robots or real human interaction. Check out Science Square for more about “amiable androids.”

Many respected thinkers claim that a new era based on artificial intelligence (AI) will follow and ultimately succeed us as the primary inhabitants of our planet [www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540]. Their main rationale is that AI will exceed our limited human intelligence, and machines will ultimately transcend us in their capabilities. AI has already entered our lives with our smart phones (e.g., voice recognition software, like Siri), Google’s search predictions, Netflix’s movie recommendations, your major bank’s fraud-detection algorithms, and many other ways. In the very near future, we will likely see self-driving cars on the streets, drone-based delivery of online purchases, and ‘smart’ machinery for our households. It’s certain that AI based algorithms will substitute or at least help humans in performing certain tasks. In fact, they already have. But will advances in artificial intelligence research eventually allow humanoid robots to surpass us, not only in specific tasks, but in all ways?

A little history

The Industrial Revolution, in the early nineteenth century, and subsequent socio-economic developments, inevitably pushed the course of human culture towards a computerized future. In the Victorian era, financial institutions had started to carry out millions of transactions per year. Large populations needed to be surveyed and governmental censuses required the processing of millions of records. Increases in manufacturing and trade required constant bookkeeping. Such tasks were manually carried out by employed clerks. However, the advent of large-scale data required a much more efficient and effective means of data processing.

It was this need that caused an engineer named Herman Hollerith to develop a mechanical system for data processing in the late nineteenth century. Hollerith commercialized his invention by establishing the Tabulating Machine Company, in 1896, which later gave birth to IBM.

Such mechanical devices carried out specific tasks very efficiently and replaced error-prone human computers (clerks) in processing large amounts of data. But more importantly, they attracted mathematicians’ interest in defining what a “task” is and what was computable by such devices. This led to the rigorous formulation of the “algorithm,” the task or process a machine carries out, in the early twentieth century. Several tools and celebrated theorems were introduced during these years to describe computability: the Lambda-calculus, Church’s thesis, the Turing machine, Godel’s incompleteness theorem…

The pioneering work of Claude Shannon’s A Mathematical Theory of Communication, in 1948, laid the foundations of digital communication. With the invention of the transistor, data was transferred into a digital format, and digital machines or “computers” based on the Turing machine model were developed. Electronic productions were becoming cheap, ultimately enabling computers to be affordable for the public. Apple was established in the 1970s to sell personal computers (PCs). During this same era, Microsoft was also founded as a company providing software solutions for the newly emerging PC market. With the commercialization of the Internet in the 1990s, the need for content search engines was on the rise. As such, Google was founded by two PhD students from Stanford.

Today, the aforementioned companies are among the largest in the world. One common pattern in all of them is that their founders were successful in reading the global trends and aware of the course of scientific developments. With tenacity and talent, their companies were able to rise to the top of the financial heap in a short amount of time.

The era of AI?

There is a recent trend in investing in AI. Google has recently acquired many of the world’s leading robotics firms, including Boston Dynamics. Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft are all investing in machine learning, with the hope of pushing their businesses into the future. The number of AI startups has exploded in the last few years, capitalizing on over 300 million dollars from investors in 2014, up more than 20-fold compared to four years prior [www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-03/i-ll-be-back-the-return-of-artificial-intelligence].

Many scholars point out that an AI revolution is taking place and that staying relevant in tomorrow’s world requires acting today. Of course, some philosophers and scientists are arguing that AI poses a threat to our very existence. Could machines inherit our human capabilities and replace us as the predominant, intelligent form on Earth?

According to Said Nursi, the progress of human civilization and scientific development is God’s desire in humankind “to make manifest and display in the view of the people the majesty of His rule… the wonders of His art, and the marvels of His knowledge, and so that He could behold His beauty and perfection.” In achieving this, God has created mankind as the vicegerent of the earth, and He has bestowed us with remarkable abilities. As a manifestation of this, humankind has established civilizations by using our social-cultural advancements and dominion over our natural environment. Thus, knowingly or not, humanity has excellently displayed and made known the miraculous art and divine-attributes of our Maker.

From a religious viewpoint, does this forecast of intelligent machines surpassing human abilities contradict the purpose of humankind as the vicegerent of the earth? Does it also contradict humanity’s status as the most superior creation of God? What does science tell us?

We know that the Turing machine, on which modern computers are based, has serious limitations. In 1900, the famous mathematician David Hilbert published a list of problems which was unsolved at the time. The tenth problem asked for a general algorithm to determine whether a given Diophantine equation with integer coefficients has an integer solution. We now know that no such algorithm exists. Similarly, in the 1930s, Turing himself put forth that the halting problem (whether the Turing machine halts or not) is undecidable – i.e., it is impossible to construct an algorithm that always leads to a correct yes-or-no answer.

At the time, many also argued about whether the Turing machine was the ultimate mathematician. The question was: given a list of axioms and some rules of logic, will a Turing machine be able to prove every mathematical statement? The rationale behind the idea was that, since all theorems are derived from a set of axioms and logic rules, the machine can eventually enumerate all possible theorems and thus validate the correctness of a given statement.

The question was answered just a few years after. The celebrated Godel’s incompleteness theorem simply states that in a consistent system, where statements are not true and false at the same time, we will have statements that we cannot decide the correct answer to. This theorem seriously dampened the enthusiasm of people overly excited about the capabilities of these new machines. Ever since Godel’s discovery, the computability theory has been used to research the limits of computation. It is well known that the current computing models, such as Turing and Quantum machines, have their ultimate limits.

Differing from computability theory, artificial intelligence is more concerned with developing algorithms that learn or adapt to their environment, allowing them to perform a particular task. Though such algorithms inherit the ultimate restriction of the computing model they operate on, computers can still be taught to perform certain tasks, such as visual/speech recognition. The technological advances in the last decades are mind blowing, as algorithms that perform certain tasks, such as human/face detection, already show great accuracy. However, we’re still far from the kind of robots we see in certain sci-fi movies or shows.

The question remains whether we can see progress in the near future of AI that will eventually allow machines to surpass humans in their skills. But what makes humans, well, human? The computability theory first requires defining, mathematically, what an algorithm is before developing machine models that function as instructed by such an algorithm. The lack of an answer to the question of what makes humans human thus contributes to the ever-continuing discussion of AI vs. humans. Denying our spiritual side will most likely cause people to continue to see AI as the next evolutionary step; whereas, given the undeniable spiritual capacity of humans, it is not wrong to state that although AI will increasingly dominate our lives, it will never fully replace us.

Bayram Kara – PhD Candidate studying in the areas of Machine Learning.