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Scared of AI? 11 essential books for navigating our new normal
Despite its ubiquity in our machines and in the news, artificial intelligence remains both a mystery and a source of deep anxiety across occupations and generations. My students, my readers, my colleagues and kids: We are all bewildered by the mix of hype and hope, optimism and doomerism making up the discourse around AI. On the one hand, the quest for artificial general intelligence (AGI) and a utopian belief in the life-improving promise of these emergent technologies; on the other, new algorithmic forms of injustice, the displacement of whole work forces and the limitless sloppification of language, music, video and other aesthetic forms — to say nothing of the threat of human extinction.
The 11 books described below, all published recently, give us helpful sight lines into our turbulent AI age. Some titles are hard-hitting trade nonfiction. One is an academic critique. Others are novels, fictional accounts that imagine how our world is being reshaped (and will be further transformed) by the many technologies grouped under the term artificial intelligence: deepfakes and autonomous drones, AI-enhanced medical scans and self-driving cars.
What all these books have in common is their awareness that AI is transforming our world in ways all too easy to imagine yet nearly impossible to predict.
“Vantage Point: A Novel” by Sara Sligar
(MCD)
“Vantage Point”
By Sara Sligar
MCD: 400 pages, $29
This twisty and brilliantly written thriller about a Maine family spins a tale of ambition, trauma and privilege around the proliferation of so-called deepfakes. Those AI-generated videos play an increasing role in the spread of slanderous accusations and political disinformation in today’s public sphere. Whether the footage at the center of the plot is real or computer-generated is one of the burning questions at the heart of the novel, which plumbs the nature of reality in our age of digital disinformation and virtual selves.
“The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI” by Dr. Fei-Fei Li
(Flatiron Books: A Moment of Lift)
“The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI”
By Fei-Fei Li
Flatiron: 336 pages, $20
Though it’s been out for two years already, Li’s account of the early years of computer vision and deep learning is a refreshing break from the LLM-centric discourse dominating many discussions of AI. Li shows us the broader computational context of AI’s emergence, explaining key concepts and breakthroughs in vivid, comprehensible detail. “The Worlds I See” is also a scientific autobiography, a compelling account of Li’s personal and intellectual journey from the impoverished circumstances of a Chinese immigrant family life to a wealthy and world-leading university lab.
“Death of the Author: A Novel” by Nnedi Okorafor
(William Morrow)
“Death of the Author”
By Nnedi Okorafor
William Morrow: 448 pages, $30
“Rusted Robots” is the title of the AI-themed novel-within-a-novel that Zelu, Okorafor’s MFA-wielding protagonist, writes in the wake of a creative and professional calamity. As we encounter excerpts from the book — an Africanfuturist (Okorafor’s preferred term) narrative set in a postapocalyptic West Africa — we learn how the novel achieves phenomenal sales and success that eluded Zelu when she was writing literary fiction, even as Okorafor explores the perils of fame and new fortune. The result is a powerful meditation on the roles of disability, autonomy and privilege in the shaping of literary making in an age when art itself is increasingly threatened by machines.
“Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age” by Vauhini Vara
(Pantheon)
“Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age”
By Vauhini Vara
Pantheon: 352 pages, $30
Vara’s moving account of her uncanny exchanges with a chatbot about her sister’s death became a viral sensation after it appeared in the Believer in 2021, at the dawn of our LLM-obsessed age. In a series of further essays, reflections and fragments, Vara — a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her novel “The Immortal King Rao” as well as a former technology reporter for the Wall Street Journal — investigates the role of digital technologies in making us who we are, and may want to become. The book bristles with insight and originality, interspersing Vara’s more journalistic expositions with excurses and fragments curated from the author’s expansive digital life.
“Notes on Infinity: A Novel” by Austin Taylor
(Celadon)
“Notes on Infinity: A Novel”
By Austin E. Taylor
Celadon: 400 pages, $30
Though Taylor’s absorbing debut swings more biotech than AI, the novel beautifully captures the extreme techno-optimism of the multibillionaire set — in this case around the possibility of eternal human life. As Zoe, one of the protagonists, notes early on, her interest in a particular professor’s work stems from his success in “using AI neural networks to understand biological neural networks and the processes of thinking.” “Notes on Infinity” combines the traditional campus novel with the zeitgeisty tech novel, featuring Harvard students with “edge” placing “bets on the next Zuck in the dining halls.”
“Ideal Subjects: The Abstract People of AI” by Olga Goriunova
(Minnesota)
“Ideal Subjects: The Abstract People of AI”
By Olga Goriunova
Minnesota: 232 pages, $32
This deeply researched study examines how AI systems create “abstract people”: statistical confections, subject profiles and anthropomorphic personages that increasingly substitute for humans in digital environments. Goriunova, a cultural theorist and digital curator based in London, examines how these constructed figures and abstractions shape surveillance, governance and everyday life. What is a “digital person,” and why should we care? Goriunova’s answers prove as complex as they are fascinating.
“Annie Bot” by Sierra Greer
(Mariner)
“Annie Bot”
By Sierra Greer
Mariner: 240 pages, $19
The success of the two “M3gan” films suggests a never-ending fascination with human-like cyborgs — though in the case of “Annie Bot,” this fascination is laced with a prurient eroticism that Greer both exploits and cleverly frustrates in her insightful debut. Annie is a sexbot companion operating in autodidactic mode, learning her owner’s sexual proclivities in much the same way AlphaGo perfected the ancient game of Go. At the heart of novel, though, is a thoughtful and darkly humorous meditation on the politics of AI personhood and subjection comparable to Kazuo Ishiguro’s project in “Klara and the Sun,” and with equally harrowing implications.
“Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI” by Karen Hao
(Penguin Press)
“Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI”
By Karen Hao
Penguin Press: 496 pages, $32
Hao’s bestselling account of OpenAI and its neoimperial ambitions has received lots of coverage, though it deserves an even wider readership. Formerly an application engineer at a Google spinoff, Hao writes with an insider’s knowledge about the relationship between technological innovation and socioeconomic inequality around the world, from resource-guzzling data centers in Chile to ego-filled executive suites in San Francisco. Full of industry anecdotes and sobering analyses, the book is a riveting introduction to the corporate culture of artificial intelligence and its designs on all of us.
“Who Knows You by Heart: A Novel” by C.J. Farley
(William Morrow)
“Who Knows You by Heart”
By C. J. Farley
William Morrow: 288 pages, $30
Algorithmic bias and injustice are at the heart of this ingenious novel of technological innovation and corporate malfeasance. Farley’s protagonist is Octavia Crenshaw, a down-on-her-luck coder recently hired by Eustachian, an audio entertainment company exploiting new ways to bring stories to the world. After a series of mishaps and disturbing incidents at the company, Octavia teams up with another coder named Walcott to develop a bias-free AI storytelling model — only to discover the limits of her computational and political ideals. The novel is a riveting critique of Big Tech and its faux-liberal aspirations to correct the world’s wrongs.
“If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All” by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares
(Little, Brown and Company)
“If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All”
By Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares
Little, Brown: 272 pages, $30
Earning its apocalyptic title, this doomerist manifesto by two of the leading figures in the tech world appears in an era saturated with reckless optimism and hype. The book provides a sobering look at issues such as potential misalignments between human designers and the AI systems they release into the world, systems with goals of their own that we may not understand in time to thwart their most catastrophic outcomes. The main message: Be afraid. Be very afraid. The book offers a glimmer of hope as well, albeit a faint one, and concludes with some plainspoken recommendations about proceeding with extreme caution and slowing down.
“UnWorld: A Novel” by Jason Greene
(Knopf)
“UnWorld”
By Jayson Greene
Knopf: 224 pages, $28
This deeply moving novel explores the aftermath of loss and the shape of grief in an age of avatars and algorithmically mediated emotion. When a teenager named Alex dies of mysterious causes, part of the burden of mourning falls on Aviva, an upload virtually confected out of pain. By imagining technologies that can shoulder our memories, our labor and our most shattering emotions, Greene questions whether AI risks nurturing a fantasy that code can heal what hurts in our inner lives. A timely meditation on AI’s allure as an escape hatch from the strain of modern consciousness, the novel quietly insists that any lasting tranquility must still be cultivated from within and shared between humans, with all our flaws.
Holsinger’s most recent novel is “Culpability,” an Oprah’s Book Club pick for summer 2025.