Humanity in the age of AI

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

In this wonderfully clarifying essay, Waleed Aly examines what happened to liberalism. As a set of ideas, it offered formal equality and guaranteed freedoms. But more and more, we live in a post-liberal world.

Aly looks and how and why this has happened. He discusses what has taken liberalism's place as we tackle thorny questions of freedom of speech and equality of opportunity. And he examines the limits of liberalism, the rise of illiberal democracy and the new battles over identity.

This is a supple and original essay about the forces transforming our politics.