At a time when digital footprints outlive us, and identities are archived in social feeds and algorithmic predictions, this session interrogates what technology gives, takes, and understands of us. Tech journalist and author Vauhini Vara’s debut novel, The Immortal King Rao, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her reportage features in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Atlantic, among others. Vara weaves memoir and digital history together in the genre-defying and humorous Searches, including her own Google searches, prolific Amazon reviews, and how ChatGPT aided her in writing about her sister’s death. The book explores the amusing and disturbing ways in which the internet, AI, and the tech giants behind them, have influenced our selfhoods.  Marcus du Sautoy is Simonyi Professor of public understanding of science and professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford and a fellow of the Royal Society. His book The Creativity Code: How AI is learning to write, paint and think explores the impact that generative AI is having on the creative industries.

Together through their works, Vara and Du Sautoy explore the amusing and disturbing ways in which the internet, AI, and the tech giants behind them have influenced our selfhoods and explore the impact that generative AI is having on the creative industries. This session interrogates what technology gives, takes, and understands of us. Vauhini Vara and Marcus du Sautoy in conversation

Venue: Steps

All are invited to JLF Colorado - an annual international literature festival of books, ideas, stories and camaraderie - September 13-14 at Boulder Public Library.