Twelve eye-opening, mind-expanding, funny, and provocative essays on the implications of artificial intelligence for the way we live and the way we love from New York Times best-selling author Jeanette Winterson.

“Talky, smart, anarchic, and quite sexy,” said Dwight Garner in the New York Times about Jeanette Winterson’s latest novel, Frankissstein, which perfectly describes too this new collection of essays on the same subject of AI. 

In 12 Bytes, the New York Times best-selling author of Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? Jeanette Winterson draws on her years of thinking and reading about artificial intelligence in all its bewildering manifestations. In her brilliant, laser focused, uniquely pointed, and witty style of storytelling, Winterson looks to history, religion, myth, literature, the politics of race and gender, and computer science, to help us understand the radical changes to the way we live and love that are happening now.

When we create nonbiological life-forms, will we do so in our image? Or will we accept the once-in-a-species opportunity to remake ourselves in their image? What do love, caring, sex, and attachment look like when humans form connections with nonhuman helpers, teachers, sex-workers, and companions? And what will happen to our deep-rooted assumptions about gender? Will the physical body that is our home soon be enhanced by biological and neural implants, keeping us fitter, younger, and connected? Is it time to join Elon Musk and leave planet Earth?

With wit, compassion, and curiosity, Winterson tackles AI’s most fascinating talking points, from the algorithms that data-dossier your whole life to the weirdness of backing up your brain.