From bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist Robert Wright comes a sweeping new view of artificial intelligence—as an evolutionary force that will pose deep political and spiritual challenges and could, in the process, give our species a unifying sense of purpose.

The God Test is the first book to capture the power behind the AI revolution—to clearly explain the breakthroughs that sparked the current wave of advance and compellingly show why this wave will grow in magnitude and meaning. Written by one of our foremost public intellectuals, and informed by his decades of chronicling the digital age, the book argues that we are about to witness the most abruptly dramatic social transformation in the history of our species.

Wright says that to truly understand this moment in technological history, we need to expand our perspective beyond the last century or even the whole history of technology and look back across billions of years of life on Earth. The advance of AI, he argues, is driven by evolutionary dynamics like those that led to intelligent life in the first place. And understanding those dynamics can empower us to confront our climactic challenge: Can we muster the political, moral, and even spiritual resources needed to guide this technology wisely?

If we fail, the consequences for the whole planet could be grave. But if we meet the challenge—if we pass “the God test”—we can live in a world where humanity thrives, finding not just happiness but deeper meaning and purpose. The very machines that might otherwise imperil or oppress us can enrich us, helping us transcend the psychological impediments to human concord and fulfillment.