Issue 3 · August 2026
Brains & machine intelligence
How Our Twenty-Watt Brains Unlocked Intelligence Beyond Biology
Bob Burgin
Burgin connects memory, neuroscience, and machine learning to explain how intelligence develops in brains and machines. The publisher frames it around a question central to this digest: what, if anything, changes when intelligence moves beyond biology?
Christian faith & human formation
A Survival Guide for Humanity
Collin Hansen and Skyler R. Flowers, editors
What kind of people is AI training us to become? This collection brings Christian theology and ethics to questions about work, art, companionship, community, and death. The publisher presents it as a guide to evaluating AI through Christian beliefs about human life and formation.
Publisher preorder. An Amazon listing for this edition was not verified.
Church life, community & integrity
Make Your Ministry Irreplaceable in a World of Artificial Everything
Carey Nieuwhof
Nieuwhof asks how churches should respond when AI changes work, trust, and people's expectations of relationships. The publisher describes three priorities: deepen in-person community, prepare for financial and mental-health pressures, and strengthen leaders' integrity. Its focus is pastoral preparation, not simply adopting more tools.
Catholic social teaching & human dignity
On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence
Pope Leo XIV; foreword by Arthur C. Brooks
This print edition of Leo XIV's first encyclical asks what technological progress is for and what should remain under human judgment. Penguin describes a Catholic social-teaching approach to AI, work, creativity, and dignity. This listing concerns the UK paperback edition, not a newly announced text.
Amazon UK preorder. The retailer uses an alternate subtitle; ISBN and author match this publisher edition.
Companionship & human connection
Who We Become When We Talk to Machines
Sherry Turkle
What happens to our ability to care for people when a chatbot becomes the easier relationship? Turkle follows AI companionship from childhood through the end of life, questioning whether simulated empathy changes what we expect from one another.
Learning & independent judgment
What AI Does to Us
Eric C. So
So examines the difference between using AI to think better and using it instead of thinking. His account focuses on memory, judgment, learning, and dependence, with practical ways to keep convenience from doing the work that builds our own abilities.
Living & working with AI
The Next Phase of AI
Ethan Mollick
Mollick asks how to live alongside systems that can outperform us in some tasks and fail badly in others. The publisher describes a guide to working and learning with AI while retaining judgment, autonomy, and a clear sense of its limits.