This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here. Humans used to spend a lot of time thinking about what separated us from animals. René Descartes, who wrote, “I think, therefore I am,” practiced vivisection on rabbits and dogs because he thought that they lacked consciousness. Then Charles Darwin argued convincingly that humans are indeed animals—and now, in the time of AI, we tend to think a lot more about what separates us from