Searches

Selfhood in the Digital Age

De: Vauhini Vara

Narrado por: Vauhini Vara, Anastasia Davidson

From the author of The Immortal King Rao, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a personal exploration of how technology companies have both fulfilled and exploited the human desire for understanding and connection • A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: Esquire, Foreign Policy, Lit Hub, Electric Literature

When it was released to the public in November 2022, ChatGPT awakened the world to a secretive project: teaching AI-powered machines to write. Its creators had a sweeping ambition—to build machines that could not only communicate, but could do all kinds of other activities, better than humans ever could. But was this goal actually achievable? And if reached, would it lead to our liberation or our subjugation?

Vauhini Vara, an award-winning tech journalist and editor, had long been grappling with these questions. In 2021, she asked a predecessor of ChatGPT to write about her sister’s death, resulting in an essay that was both more moving and more disturbing than she could have imagined. It quickly went viral.

The experience, revealing both the power and the danger of corporate-owned technologies, forced Vara to interrogate how these technologies have influenced her understanding of her self and the world around her, from discovering online chat rooms as a preteen, to using social media as the Wall Street Journal’s first Facebook reporter, to asking ChatGPT for writing advice—while compelling her to add to the trove of human-created material exploited for corporations’ financial gain. Interspersed throughout this investigation are her own Google searches, Amazon reviews, and the other raw material of internet life—including the viral AI experiment that started it all. Searches illuminates how technological capitalism is both shaping and exploiting human existence, while proposing that by harnessing the collective creativity that makes humans unique, we might imagine a freer, more empowered relationship with our machines and, ultimately, with one another.

*Includes a downloadable PDF of images from the book

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2025 Vauhini Vara (P)2025 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

One of the New York Times’ Nonfiction Books to Read This Spring

One of Esquire’s 20 Most Anticipated Books of 2025

One of Foreign Policy's Most Anticipated Books of 2025

One of Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2025

One of Electric Literature’s 48 Books by Women of Color to Read in 2025

“Readers will be profoundly moved by this remarkable meditation.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Tragic, funny, and relatable, [SEARCHES] is by turns absurd and insightful, engaging with the ethics of algorithms, surveillance, and privacy in a meaningful way. . . . A must read.”—Library Journal, starred review

“Vara’s essays are beautifully written and profoundly researched, but what sets them apart is their profound vulnerability. Her use of experimental forms . . . pushes the limits of the genre without ever compromising her circumspective, confessional approach. An original essay collection about loss, technology, morality, and identity.”—Kirkus, starred review

Brilliant!

She is a master at defining the layers to reveal the core(s) of her subjects and show how those are connected to one another. The result is that I'm able to understand our world a bit more and weirdly, a nudge toward the positive side.

I think the title sums this complex book up well!

Damn, this book has LEVELS. If I had to summarize this book in a sentence, it would have to be…. Well, similar to the title of this book: living in this world with the technology that we have and that is presumed to be coming soon. However, with all of the layers that Vara includes in this book, this summary does not do justice to this work.

If you’re not paying close attention, you may find yourself in a chapter of this book thinking- what am I reading?! This doesn’t seem like the same book that I was reading 5 chapters ago! But then, you think more carefully about what the overall objective of the book is, and you think… ah… genius.

This book starts out with Vara interacting with ChatGPT, asking it for its opinion/analysis of her writing. (I’ll mention here that I listened to the audiobook, and because of the nature of this book’s content, I highly recommend the audiobook). This interaction with ChatGPT is ongoing throughout the book, but not always consistently occurring. Vara then starts on a deep dive of the internet and eventually social media: the beginnings of the internet and related technology, and how it all developed into social media, and the development of big Tech Companies and their influence on the world and on us as consumers/products.

Vara then shares with us her process of writing about the death of her sister while using ChatGPT. The essay that she produced, which talked about her method of using ChatGPT to assist, was published in The Believer. She starts by giving ChatGPT the first sentence or two of her story, and ChatGPT finishes the story for her. In version #2, she gives ChatGPT more sentences, and it fills in the rest of the story, but of course, the story is now different. There are about 10 versions included in this essay, which are all included in this book. This part of the book can feel redundant, because you are hearing parts of the story over and over, but- I found it very interesting, and I loved seeing the process.

Vara then explores more about what ChatGPT and other technologies can do, and how that can potentially help us and hurt as us humans in this world- as working professionals, as humans living in a moral society, as people who are (or many of us who are) hoping to move towards greater understanding and acceptance of each other as opposed to close-mindedness, division, and biased information/misinformation.

She ends the book with a wonderful chapter called “What Is It Like to Be Alive?”, where she shares the results of a survey of questions that ultimately emphasize that no matter how much control AI has over our world, human beings / beings in general are still the most fascinating and entertaining technology that the world will ever know. That was my take, at least.

My negative critiques are basically based on spots that I would find a little tedious or boring, but- which I thought had an important place in the book. First, at certain points, ChatGPT would read out items in a big list, which, while I see the importance of the point being made, could sometimes come across as a waste of time/space in the book. I’m sure this will be a feature that is received very differently among readers. I felt that depending on my mindset, I would receive it differently. If I was in a more relaxed, open-minded mindset, I received it a lot better. Second, some of the chapters where Vara is discussing her utilization of AI felt really long. I understood the concept and that in order to convey the concept, the length of the chapter seems appropriate, but - this element also would be received differently depending on my energy/mood. I think it’s all genius, but not always exactly what I wanted at the time.

Excessive repetition!

Offers insightful moments, especially when paired with the audiobook’s blend of the author’s voice and ChatGPT. Some chapters stand out, but others feel unnecessary and repetitive. A creative concept with uneven execution.