12 Bytes by Jeanette Winterson review – how we got here and where we might go next

Twelve essays drawing on years of research into artificial intelligence ask challenging questions about humanity, art, religion and the way we live and loveIn Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, a scientist creates life and is horrified by what he has done. Two centuries on, synthetic life, albeit in a far simpler form, has been created in a dish. What Shelley imagined has only now become possible. But as Jeanette Winterson points out in this essay collection, the achievements of scien