Everything is potent with significance, and history is a вЂњprocess of revelation,вЂќ culminating in the elevation of humans into вЂњвЂpost-humans,вЂ™ or spiritual machines.вЂќ Take, for instance, transhumanism, according to which вЂњthe evolution of the cosmos comes down to a single process: that of information becoming organized into increasingly complex forms of intelligence.вЂќ For those who see вЂњprocesses as disparate as forests, genes and cellular structuresвЂќ as forms of computation - as means of transmitting information - our world is re-enchanted. Many of the tech-utopians who congratulate themselves most vociferously on their affinity with the Enlightenment subscribe to quasi-religious worldviews - a phenomenon that OвЂ™Gieblyn, who grew up in a Christian fundamentalist family, is well equipped to analyze. The self resists exile, creeping back into even ostensibly materialist theories. As early as the 1940s, the pioneering cyberneticists Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts were defending the вЂњcomputational theory of mind,вЂќ according to which вЂњthe human mind functioned, on the neural level, much like a Turing machine.вЂќ In other words, the mind did not function like a mind at all: It functioned like a mechanism.Д«ut as OвЂ™Gieblyn argues, the ghost still haunts the machine. But as we read ourselves into computers, we read computers back into ourselves, with disastrous consequences. вЂњIt is impossible to pet an object and address it verbally without coming to regard it in some sense as sentient,вЂќ she reflects. вЂњGod, Human, Animal, MachineвЂќ opens with an anecdote about how OвЂ™Gieblyn developed an affectionate attachment to Aibo, SonyвЂ™s $3,000 robotic dog.

The self is also a casualty of bad analogies. вЂњGod, Human, Animal, MachineвЂќ represents a canny rejoinder to the bankrupt вЂњphilosophy of selfhood that has characterized information technologies since the early days of cybernetics - the notion that a person can be described purely in terms of pattern and probabilities, without any concern for interiority.вЂќ OвЂ™GieblynвЂ™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. The architects of our digital landscape see people in terms not of personalities but of trackable clicks. Yet many of the most powerful forces in the contemporary world conspire to deny the value - and even the existence - of experience that evades quantification. In this respect, games resemble most of our cherished ventures, almost all of which matter to us in part because they have some bearing on the texture of our inner lives.

I donвЂ™t know why an algorithm participates in a Go tournament, or if it can be said to have what we would call a вЂњreasonвЂќ - but I know that most people enjoy games because they value the process, not just the outcome, of playing. After all, many of us play games not primarily to win or lose, but also to enter into a community with other human players, or for the sheer pleasure of untangling conceptual knots. We might be awed by the AlphaGoвЂ™s icy efficiency - but then, we might also wonder why anyone would bother playing against a computer. As the essayist and cultural critic Meghan OвЂ™Gieblyn reports in her nimble new book, вЂњGod, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning,вЂќ one former Go champion watched the game and exclaimed that AlphaGoвЂ™s winning maneuver was вЂњnot a human move.вЂќ It is not immediately clear how we, being humans, ought to react to such alien stratagems.

These, roughly, are the strange and surgical circumstances under which Lee Sedol, one of the best Go players in the world, was vanquished in a best-of-five match in 2016. You touch nothing tangible: You are unable to scrutinize the expressions of your faceless competitor. Squinting into the cool glare of your monitor, you manipulate digital pieces. Your opponent is not a person but an algorithm, AlphaGo, a program created by GoogleвЂ™s machine-learning subsidiary, DeepMind. Imagine sitting down to a game of Go, not in a cafe or a park, where you could banter with your adversary or discuss strategy with onlookers, but alone in front of a screen. GOD, HUMAN, ANIMAL, MACHINE Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning By Meghan OвЂ™Gieblyn

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