God-like: AI and the Ancient Dream of the Thinking Machine - Paperback

by Kester Brewin

A cultural and theological history of humanity's centuries-long desire to build a mind greater than its own. Brewin begins with a monk burned at the stake in 1600 for claiming to have built an all-knowing device, moves through the first atomic bomb test, and arrives at the present moment in Silicon Valley.

This is not a technical book. It is a book about why we keep building, what we are reaching for, and what the myths we tell about technology reveal about us. Brewin is one of the most thoughtful writers working at the intersection of theology, culture, and technology.

Strong fit for courses in technology and society, science and religion, or contemporary theology. Unusual in treating AI as a cultural and spiritual question rather than an engineering one.