God, Human, Animal, Machine
Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning
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God, Human, Animal, Machine
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Narrated by:
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Rebecca Lowman
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By:
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Meghan O'Gieblyn
About this listen
A strikingly original exploration of what it might mean to be authentically human in the age of artificial intelligence, from the author of the critically-acclaimed Interior States. • "At times personal, at times philosophical, with a bracing mixture of openness and skepticism, it speaks thoughtfully and articulately to the most crucial issues awaiting our future."—Phillip Lopate
“[A] truly fantastic book.”—Ezra Klein
For most of human history the world was a magical and enchanted place ruled by forces beyond our understanding. The rise of science and Descartes's division of mind from world made materialism our ruling paradigm, in the process asking whether our own consciousness—i.e., souls—might be illusions. Now the inexorable rise of technology, with artificial intelligences that surpass our comprehension and control, and the spread of digital metaphors for self-understanding, the core questions of existence—identity, knowledge, the very nature and purpose of life itself—urgently require rethinking.
Meghan O'Gieblyn tackles this challenge with philosophical rigor, intellectual reach, essayistic verve, refreshing originality, and an ironic sense of contradiction. She draws deeply and sometimes humorously from her own personal experience as a formerly religious believer still haunted by questions of faith, and she serves as the best possible guide to navigating the territory we are all entering.
©2021 Meghan O'Gieblyn (P)2021 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
Recipient of the Benjamin Hadley Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science & Technology
Featured on the New York Times Book Review’s Paperback Row
“O’Gieblyn’s loosely linked and rigorously thoughtful meditations on technology, humanity and religion mount a convincing and occasionally moving apologia for that ineliminable wrench in the system, the element that not only browses and buys but feels: the embattled, anachronistic and indispensable self. God, Human, Animal, Machine is a hybrid beast, a remarkably erudite work of history, criticism and philosophy, but it is also, crucially, a memoir.”—The New York Times
“Meghan O’Gieblyn’s essays are 'personal' in that they are portraits of the private thoughts, curiosities, and uncertainties that thrive in O’Gieblyn’s mind about selfhood, meaning, moral responsibility, and faith. There's nowhere her avid intellect won't go in its quest to find, if not 'meaning,' then the available modern tools we might use, today, as humans, to create it. O’Gieblyn is a brilliant and humble philosopher, and her book is an explosively thought-provoking, candidly personal ride I wished never to end. This book is such an original synthesis of ideas and disclosures. It introduces what will soon be called the O’Gieblyn genre of essay writing.”—Heidi Julavits, author of The Folded Clock
"A fascinating exploration of our enchantment with technology."—Eula Biss, author of Having and Being Had
What listeners say about God, Human, Animal, Machine
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- R. Roberts
- 23-11-22
Fascinating, relatable, thought-provoking.
After listening to this book I have more questions than answers. I feel a bit disappointed but I guess that's cos I'm on the same journey from another fundamentalist bible college (a universe of cheap certainties) out into the big wide world where certainty ain't cheap.
I was hoping the author might have trodden some of my path before me and taken up some clearly defined positions - positions I could consider taking myself. But apart from abandoning biblical innerency and common Christian doctrines the book seems to ramble very eloquently through many positions along her subsequent journey without staying anywhere for very long.
For example we are presented with the hypothesis that we are living in a virtual reality created by our technologically advanced descendants (or other civilisations?) but I don't remember any discussion of arguments for and against this hypothesis (not that I've read any anywhere else!), nor do I remember her stating her position.
But maybe that's the point of the book, that the world is full of uncertainties right down to subatomic particles/ waves and the consciousness of the observer. I haven't read other books that do argue convincingly for many of the hypotheses discussed.
And so I am grateful to the writer for sharing her journey in a well-crafted work that is highly readable, enjoyable and relatable. If she and I both exist then at least one thing is certain: we are not alone on this journey, and that feels a whole lot better.
The book is extremely well narrated too, pace and clarity much appreciated when dealing with so much rich and thought-provoking content.
Final teaser thought: whilst I identify with concerns about artificial intelligence and I would always go with the precautionary principle, I find much of the tone around AI a bit negative and anthropocentric.
Sort of like if our Jurassic shrew-like ancestors discussed the dangers of what their descendants might become if they started being more social and climbing trees and eventually playing with fire.
I grant that conscious AI would be (is?!) a clean break from the natural selection process but that natural process is painfully blind anyway causing great suffering and waste, surely we can do better if we care?
Maybe I don't get it? But the book ending seems to me teasingly ambiguous on this point.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- domo
- 30-08-23
Essential reading
I would treat this book as a timely, delightful and extensive goldmine of ideas, the perusal of which you might find useful living as you do in the present day world, Its not a tractatus, its a philosophical and technological romp, I loved the brave personal touches. The ancient dust from the theological and philosophical is rising in clouds due to emergence of AI.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 23-05-23
On the borders of humanity
Meghan O’Gieblyn traverses the ever-so-relevant new frontiers of the implications of machine learning, AI and (importantly) how we as humans view them through metaphor and technology.
The book is well researched, and both the technological details and philosophical discussions are communicated in an engaging and understandable way (though I must admit that it is a challenging subject in those regards for me in some segments of the book, despite my knowledge of philosophy and physics).
Simply put a fantastic philosophical book carried upon the personal journey of the author, who has transcended from a forced faith in god to a chosen faith in humanity.
One can only shift between worry and awe, as the machines begin to overtake the roles of not only us humans, but also the predictive and omniscient functions that we used to attribute to gods, which has led society to treat the machine more and more like a god, whom we created in the image of a human
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Persephone
- 15-08-23
Narcissistic author who knows it all
Fortunately this is a brief yet mediocre read.
Apparently the author knows quantum mechanics, particle physics, transhuman studies, black holes, global history and a cart load of other subjects.
She does not hold back on reminding you that she does, she keeps telling you so ..
Also for a reformed religious zealot she keeps referring to god and religion. She keeps hinting at some transcendent power that, perhaps, will only choose herself as the know all end all specimen of a human scientist and resurrect her alone as our global representative….
Her posits are extensively delusional, the technical and scientific references flailing and suppositions were of a very flimsy wiseacre.
Really people, keep your own beliefs behind your own front doors, we purchase these kinds of books for knowledge, not to entertain the vanities of a Middle Aged writers who still believe in the tooth fairy.
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