In Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age, journalist Vauhini Vara explores how the technologies we use to understand the world—search engines, social platforms, and now AI systems—are also reshaping how we understand ourselves. Drawing from her own experience using chatbots to write about her sister’s death, Vara reflects on what happens when our most human questions, memories, and emotions are filtered through systems designed to analyze and monetize them. Humanities scholar Luca Messarra speaks with Vara about the promises and limits of machine understanding.

Grab your copy of Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age: https://www.vauhinivara.com/searches

This conversation was recorded on 2/26/2026. Watch the full video recording at: https://archive.org/details/searches-book-talk

Check out all of the Future Knowledge episodes at https://archive.org/details/future-knowledge