Futurists & Big-Picture Thinkers
The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning
Robert Wright · 2026 · Simon & Schuster
The author of Nonzero and The Evolution of God argues that AI's advance is driven by evolutionary dynamics, and asks whether humanity can marshal the political, moral and spiritual resources to guide it.
Summary
“The advance of AI, he argues, is driven by evolutionary dynamics like those that led to intelligent life in the first place.”
The book explains the breakthroughs behind the current wave of AI and argues that the wave will keep growing. The author places AI in the context of billions of years of life on Earth rather than the history of technology alone. He argues that understanding those evolutionary dynamics can help people meet the challenge of guiding the technology. Chapters cover large language models, agency, hive minds and loss of control, the singularity, and what he calls AI heaven and AI hell.
Summary based on the publisher's page ↗
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About the author
Robert Wright
Robert Wright is the author of The Evolution of God (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), Nonzero, The Moral Animal, Three Scientists and Their Gods and Why Buddhism Is True. He has taught in the psychology department at Penn and the religion department at Princeton, cofounded Bloggingheads.tv, and hosts the NonZero podcast and newsletter.
Source: Book's official site ↗