Read: Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit (Kissinger, 2024)

Reading Notes – Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit (2024, Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, Craig Mundie)

Henry Kissinger’s final book, co-authored with Eric Schmidt and Craig Mundie, is an attempt to place artificial intelligence within the sweep of history. Drawing on Kissinger’s trademark lens of geopolitics and diplomacy, the text positions AI not just as a new technology but as a transformative force comparable to the printing press or nuclear weapons. It blends historical analogy, philosophical reflection, and a sober warning about the stakes of the present moment.

The book is valuable precisely because it comes from someone who has lived geopolitics firsthand and thought deeply about the conditions under which states act and cooperate. That vantage point allows Kissinger and his co-authors to situate AI within questions of human dignity, knowledge, and power, rather than treating it only as an engineering problem.

Yet in my view, the solutions advanced do not fully address the challenges at hand. Much of the framework rests on the hope of international collaboration, restraint, and goodwill. Those are not native features of geopolitics, which is shaped as much by rivalry, mistrust, and the pursuit of advantage as by shared responsibility. The proposed diplomatic architectures may indeed become part of a broader set of tools over time, but they cannot be sufficient on their own. At best, they should be seen as the opening moves in what will need to be a much more complex and multi-layered governance framework—one that accounts for national competition, corporate power, and societal impacts alongside lofty appeals to cooperation.