The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity by Robert Wright (Simon & Schuster). Reviewed by Jan Burzlaff. “The book’s most audacious claim is also its most clarifying. Large language model (LLM) training is not merely analogous to natural selection — it is natural selection, operating on a third substrate after biology and individual learning. The implication follows: AI development carries the same remorseless, directionless logic as biological evolution, which means ‘alignment’ is roughly as easy as asking natural selection to be kind. Wright bookends his argument with Edward Fredkin, the self-taught MIT maverick who told him in 1983 that humanity’s mission was to create AI. That claim reads very differently now.”

Ghost-Eye: A Novel by Amitav Ghosh (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Reviewed by Sally Shivnan. “Ghost-Eye is written in part for South Asians examining their history and culture and exploring questions of how the past fits with the present. It is also aimed at a global audience, providing glimpses of pivotal events in Indian colonial and post-colonial history — detailing, for example, the violence and displacement in the wake of 1947’s Partition but embedding it in the story so that it doesn’t feel like a history lesson.”

This Past Was Waiting for Me: A Chronicle at Quarter Century by Sarah Trembath (Lazuli Literary Press). Reviewed by Michele L. Simms-Burton. “Her approach to writing about gentrification and displacement challenges our orientation toward inhabiting shared spaces, education, and the roles of teachers in ensuring a more tranquil union. With a doctorate in education policy and leadership, Trembath is aware of how education in this country is not only skewed to present a benevolent narrative about the nation’s founding, but also how narratives tend to sanitize their own crimes against humanity.”

Carryout: Stories by Hasan Dudar (University of Iowa Press). Reviewed by Mike Maggio. “Here lies the crux of Dudar’s narrative and the dilemma facing all immigrants, not just Arabs. How is one supposed to assimilate into a society that, for the most part, shuns you because of your otherness? And the next question that arises is this: Should immigrants assimilate — and, if so, how — or should they maintain an insular existence in an isolated enclave? Certainly, at the beginning of the 20th century, Jews faced the same problem as Italians and other immigrant groups. Today, it’s Arabs or Haitians or Hispanics — the list goes on and on. How, then, does one achieve the American Dream when it’s constantly kept from you because of your faith, skin color, upbringing, or birthplace?”

American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Castaneda by Ru Marshall (OR Books). Reviewed by Franklin Freeman. “Marshall — who recently wrote a piece on the parallels between Castaneda’s movement and MAGA — details how Castaneda built his cult by employing the same practices used by other ones: Love-bomb someone emotionally vulnerable, usually from a divorce or a death; give them a sense of belonging; cut them off from family and friends; and then subject them to ego-demolition, followed by more love, until they’re utterly dependent on the cult. (And, of course, on its leader, who’s usually a man. But not always.)”

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