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  • Topic Guide
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Beneath the Algorithm: Human After All

As artificial intelligence becomes part of everyday life, many of our oldest questions return: What makes us human? Across cultures and centuries, people have used stories, rituals, art, language, memory, and relationships to make meaning of the world. These books explore humanity from anthropological, historical, philosophical, and literary perspectives, helping us understand ourselves in a rapidly changing technological age.

Library Staff
User from Ottawa Public Library

21 items

  • The Dawn of Everything

    a New History of Humanity

    Graeber, David,
    Anthropology & Human History
    Book, 2021[Toronto] : Signal, McClelland & Stewart, [2021] — 901 GRAEB

  • Kindred

    Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art

    Wragg Sykes, Rebecca,
    Anthropology & Human History
    Book, 2020London : Bloomsbury Sigma, 2020. — 569.986 WRAGG

  • Humankind

    a Hopeful History

    Bregman, Rutger, 1988-
    Anthropology & Human History
    Book, 2020New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2020. — 128 BREGM

  • The World Beyond Your Head

    on Becoming An Individual in An Age of Distraction

    Crawford, Matthew B,
    Meaning, Consciousness & Identity
    Book, 2015Toronto, Ontario : Allen Lane, [2015] — 155.2 CRAWF

  • How to Be Animal

    a New History of What It Means to Be Human

    Challenger, Melanie,
    Meaning, Consciousness & Identity
    Book, 2021[Toronto] : Allen Lane, 2021. — 599.9 CHALL

  • The Experience Machine

    How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality

    Clark, Andy, 1957-
    Meaning, Consciousness & Identity
    Book, 2023New York : Pantheon Books, [2023] — 153 CLARK

  • Sapiens

    a Brief History of Humankind

    Harari, Yuval N.,
    Storytelling, Culture & Memory
    Book, 2016[Toronto] : Signal, McClelland & Stewart, 2016. — 909 HARAR

  • The Storytelling Animal

    How Stories Make Us Human

    Gottschall, Jonathan
    Storytelling, Culture & Memory
    Book, 2012Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, c2012. — 808.543 GOTTS

  • Ways of Being

    Animals, Plants, Machines : the Search for a Planetary Intelligence

    Bridle, James,
    Storytelling, Culture & Memory
    Book, 2022New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022. — 153.9 BRIDL

  • Why Fish Don't Exist

    a Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life

    Miller, Lulu, 1983-
    Storytelling, Culture & Memory
    Book, 2020New York : Simon & Schuster, 2020. — 597.092 JORDA-M

  • Palaces for the People

    How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life

    Klinenberg, Eric,
    Connection, Community & Belonging
    Book, 2018New York : Crown, [2018] — 307.760973 KLINE

  • Braiding Sweetgrass

    Kimmerer, Robin Wall, 1953-
    Connection, Community & Belonging
    Book, 2013Minneapolis, Minnesota : Milkweed Editions, 2013. — 305.897 KIMME

  • The Art of Gathering

    How We Meet and Why It Matters

    Parker, Priya,
    Connection, Community & Belonging
    Book, 2018New York : Riverhead Books, 2018. — 302.1 PARKE

  • The Lonely Century

    How to Restore Human Connection in a World That's Pulling Apart

    Hertz, Noreena,
    Connection, Community & Belonging
    Book, 2021New York : Currency, [2021] — 302.545 HERTZ

  • A Psalm for the Wild-built

    Chambers, Becky,
    Literary Fiction
    Book, 2021New York : Tordotcom, a Tom Doherty Associates Book, 2021. — CHAMB

  • The Overstory

    a Novel

    Powers, Richard, 1957-
    Literary Fiction
    Book, 2018New York : W.W. Norton & Company, [2018] — POWER