Description

From Vauhini Vara, the acclaimed author of The Immortal King Rao—finalist for the Pulitzer Prize—comes an insightful personal exploration of humanity’s complex relationship with technology, and how tech companies have simultaneously harnessed and exploited our deepest desires for connection and understanding.

Named a most anticipated book by leading publications including The New York Times, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Foreign Policy, Bustle, Alta, Ms. Magazine, Cultured, Denizen, The Millions, Lit Hub, Book Riot, and Electric Literature, “Searches” tackles urgent questions about artificial intelligence and its accelerating presence in everyday life.

When ChatGPT became publicly accessible in November 2022, the groundbreaking technology revealed to the world the astonishing possibility that AI machines could write convincingly like humans. Its creators dreamed far beyond mere communication; their ambition was to design machines capable of performing a limitless range of tasks, potentially surpassing human capabilities altogether. But could this ultimate goal ever realistically be reached—and if it were, would it bring humanity closer to liberation or closer to subjection?

Vara, an award-winning journalist specializing in technology, has wrestled deeply with these very dilemmas. In 2021, she challenged an earlier AI tool similar to ChatGPT to write an essay about the death of her sister, resulting in a haunting, poignant work more impactful and unsettling than she ever expected. When published, the story quickly went viral, bringing stark attention to the profound power—and inherent dangers—inherent in corporate-controlled technologies.

Prompted by this experience, Vara intimately explores technology’s profound influence on her own formation of identity, from early encounters exploring internet chat rooms as a teen, to becoming the Wall Street Journal’s first assigned Facebook reporter, and eventually looking to ChatGPT itself for writing guidance. Throughout her reflections, Vara is repeatedly confronted with the disturbing realization that even her own creative output becomes part of the vast digital landscape continually mined by corporations for financial gain. Interwoven throughout the narrative are relevant fragments of her personal digital history—Google searches, Amazon reviews, and other raw and revealing snippets defining contemporary internet life—including, notably, the essay born from the AI experiment that sparked her initial curiosity.

At once deeply personal and ambitiously philosophical, “Searches” exposes how technological capitalism shapes and monetizes our daily existence. Yet it also envisions a path forward—one in which humans might reclaim their creative agency, imagine more balanced relationships with machines, and ultimately forge stronger, more authentic human connections.