The words ai, aye, eye, I sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Why do ai, aye, eye, I sound the same even though they are completely different words?
The answer is simple: ai, aye, eye, I are homophones of the English language.
See sloth.
airborne intercept
An affirmative vote or voter: The ayes outnumber the nays on this issue.
Yes; yea: voted aye on the appropriations bill.
Always; ever: pledged their love for aye.
The faculty of seeing; vision.
An organ of vision or of light sensitivity.
Either of a pair of hollow structures located in bony sockets of the skull, functioning together or independently, each having a lens capable of focusing incident light on an internal photosensitive retina from which nerve impulses are sent to the brain; the vertebrate organ of vision.
The external, visible portion of this organ together with its associated structures, especially the eyelids, eyelashes, and eyebrows.
Used to refer to oneself as speaker or writer.
The self; the ego.
The symbol for the element iodine.
Electricity The symbol for current.
Definitions from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition and Wordnik.
Homophones (literally "same sound") are usually defined as words that share the same pronunciation, regardless of how they are spelled.
If they are spelled the same then they are also homographs (and homonyms); if they are spelled differently then they are also heterographs (literally "different writing").