Summer 2025 Book Club: Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit
Learn more and register for the Association for Academic Leaders’ Summer Book Club.
Book Review by Sarah Hanawald, Executive Director, Association for Academic Leaders
“Sarah, you have to read this book” is something that I hear fairly often, particularly from people who read more and faster than I do. What usually happens is that I then dutifully purchase the book, then admire it for a while, while it works its way down the “read these” pile. This time, I happened to shove Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit into my backpack just before a long flight. Once on board, we heard the announcement that the wifi was unavailable during the flight. Four hours later, I was hooked and have been telling everyone I know “you have to read this book!” When we decided to have our book club this summer, I knew immediately that Genesis would be on the list.
In this, his last book, Genesis, Henry Kissinger dove into the evolving world of artificial intelligence not as a technologist, but as a life long student of the philosophical and ethical questions AI raises for humanity. For school leaders grappling with generative AI, this book offers a compelling framework for reflection—not technical explanation, but a moral meditation. It invites those in leadership to wrestle with not just what AI can do, but what its existence and proliferation means for us, our humanity, our institutions, and our choices.
The Burden of Moral Leadership in a Time of Overwhelm
I say to folks “you have to read this book” knowing that there’s an existential weight Academic Leaders carry right now when everything seems to demand urgent attention. Our recently released Navigating Now is focused on multiple issues, all of which feel like “issues of our time.” It’s overwhelming, I know. What speaks to me about Genesis is that Kissinger challenges leaders to hone in on their internal compass, to resist reactive governance in favor of thoughtful discernment, something Academic Leaders can do by anchoring their leadership in their school’s mission and a commitment to the future of the children in their care. Education must help students build moral imagination, empathy, and an aversion to easy utilitarianism.
Human Connection in an Age of Efficiency
At one point, Kissinger asks whether human leaders will become proxies while AI becomes the true decision-maker. This question strikes at the heart of academic leadership. Will human relationships—between teacher and student, among faculty, between school and parents —become luxuries? As independent schools increasingly adopt AI tools, this warning rings clear: resisting the commodification of human connection is not just possible, it is imperative. Leaders must ensure that AI supports, not replaces, the deeply human work of education. And that can’t do that without thinking deeply.
Inclusion by Design, Not By Default
Kissinger warns that while AI may accelerate productivity and growth, inclusivity will only happen by conscious choice. For school leaders, this is a decisive point. AI inherits and amplifies the biases of its makers. Navigating this means preparing students to thrive in AI-shaped systems while rejecting the efficiency of rapid bias replication. It means developing critical thinkers who can interrogate and redesign systems, not just succeed within them. And it means schools must remain places where inclusivity is not a byproduct, but a principle.
Conclusion: A Mirror and a Mandate for Educational Leaders
Kissinger’s Genesis is not a how-to manual—it is a provocation. For educational leaders, it offers both a mirror and a mandate. The mirror reflects the challenges we face: the temptation to offload judgment to algorithms, the risk of devaluing the emotional and ineffable, the danger of assuming inclusivity will emerge on its own. The mandate is clear: hold fast to the human spirit. AI may shape the tools of tomorrow, but it is our responsibility to shape the moral framework in which those tools are used. Schools, at their best, are not just centers of knowledge, but crucibles of character. That will not change—unless we let it.
