The God We Made: The Threat and Promise of Artificial Intelligence

How will we be changed by the rise of artificial intelligence? In this scintillating essay, Anna Goldsworthy argues that AI is a rupture that makes us confront what it is to be human – what we do, and want. As it learns human ways, AI raises big questions about work, leisure and education. It brings new existential, social and ethical risks. Above all, it invites us to consider what is irreplaceable in us, starting with the body and the friction of others.

The God We Made is a brilliant inquiry into identity and a transformed future. How can we learn to live with AI? And will AI be happy to live with us?

"The experts have spoken, but many of us remain curiously unprepared, burying our heads in the sand – Look at its hallucinations! It's never going to be as smart as us! – or imagining that the only issue is plagiarism. AI is not just another tool: it is a paradigm shift, a ceding of our superiority." —Anna Goldsworthy, The God We Made

Expanded and updated edition of the bestselling Quarterly Essay.

'Before the Pope turned to AI, Anna Goldsworthy got there first. This is one of the most important conversations we need to have, and Goldsworthy has it with her trademark grace, rigour and originality. The God We Made is that rare beast, writing that makes even the experts see their field anew.' —Toby Walsh, author of God AI: Boom or Doom? What to Expect When Machines Outsmart Us

'A humane and penetrating essay, grounded in the kind of convivial sensibility AI is pushing to the margins of our world.' —Richard King, author of Brave New Wild: Can Technology Really Save the Planet?

'Exquisite and troubling and stimulating and frightening and beautiful' —Bri Lee, author of Seed

'Goldsworthy's literary humanism brings perspective to an often breathless story.' —The Saturday Paper

'A serious, elegant and unsettling essay about humanity at the edge of a technology it does not fully understand and may not fully control.' —The Conversation