A philosophical exploration of the age of AI through the lens of desire and on the scale of civilization—asking how humanity is to survive in a world transformed by artificial intelligence.
Where does human desire begin, and how did it become a driving force of civilization? How has desire changed as civilization has advanced, and how will AI, in turn, reshape humanity and civilization?
The Algorithm of Desire brings these seemingly separate questions together along a single axis: desire.
Human beings have always desired a better life, and those desires have shaped technology, institutions, societies, states, and civilization itself. Yet civilization has never simply satisfied human desire. Every new possibility it has opened has given rise to new desires—and new forms of scarcity and longing.
Now AI has entered the heart of that process.
This book does not offer definitive answers. Instead, it explores how these questions arise, how they change, and where they may be leading us.