JG Christman examines AI, morality and human agency in new book

JG Christman’s new book asks who gets to define the good as artificial intelligence, automated systems and synthetic media increasingly shape human decisions. The work argues that preserving judgment, responsibility and the freedom to refuse is becoming a central moral issue.

Why it matters: - JG Christman’s book argues that artificial intelligence is not just a technology story. It is a test of whether people still control moral judgment when systems become more persuasive, useful and powerful. - The book ties AI to real-world questions about agency, responsibility and the risk that optimization can replace human choice. - The central concern is who decides what counts as better when institutions and machines shape the options people can see and make.

What happened: - JG Christman released Good and Evil in the Age of Simulation: Artificial Intelligence, Megatrends and the Struggle for Human Agency. - The book examines AI, adaptive algorithms, synthetic media and automated decision systems through the lens of moral philosophy. - The book is available at the retailer listing.

The details: - Christman frames the book around a question older than technology: who decides what is good. - The book moves across Plato, Aristotle, Stoicism, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Hindu thought, the Abrahamic traditions, secular humanism and Enlightenment philosophy. - Christman uses those traditions to ask why some moral disciplines keep reappearing across cultures and centuries. - Evil is treated not only as cruelty or catastrophe, but as deception, unchecked appetite, power without conscience, institutional capture and the inversion that happens when a partial good becomes absolute. - The book argues that algorithms can shape attention and influence which choices people believe are available. - Synthetic media can blur the line between event and representation. - The book says automated systems can quietly shift judgment away from people and toward machines or institutions. - Christman says the key issue is whether human beings remain capable of judgment, responsibility and refusal. - The book is intended as an inquiry, not a prescribed conclusion, for readers in faith, philosophy, secular thought, technology and public life.

Between the lines: - The book positions itself between AI boosterism and doom-mongering. - That framing suggests Christman is less interested in predicting a machine-driven future than in testing how societies assign moral authority. - The argument also reflects a broader worry that efficiency and safety can become substitutes for truth, proportion, dignity and freedom. - Christman’s background in speculative fiction and researched nonfiction appears to shape the book’s method: imaginative scenarios backed by comparison, citations and notes.

What's next: - Christman is inviting review copies, interview requests and additional information inquiries through BrightKey PR. - The book’s core question is likely to keep expanding as AI systems become more embedded in public and private decision-making. - The next debate the book points to is not whether AI can think, but how much judgment humans are willing to surrender.

The bottom line: - Christman’s book argues that preserving human agency may matter more than making systems smarter.