Searches
From Future Knowledge by Internet Archive & Authors Alliance
March 25, 2026 · 43 min · Episode 24
About this episode
Vauhini Vara discusses the impact of digital technologies on self-understanding and human emotions.
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
People in this episode
Guest: Vauhini Vara
Topics covered
- digital selfhood
- search engines
- AI systems
- human experience
- machine understanding
Keywords
- digital age
- search technologies
- chatbots
- human questions
- memories
- emotions
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Internet Archive, Authors Alliance
Books & works: Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age
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