Bobby Rukeyser, a PhD candidate in computer science, is developing advanced AI avatars. During the COVID pandemic, while temporarily living with his uncle—an evangelical pastor struggling with low church attendance—Bobby has a brilliant idea: to populate the church’s virtual services with his avatars to create the appearance of a lively congregation. But the AI evolves beyond Bobby’s expectations, and soon the avatars develop a spirituality of their own.

One of the avatars, Lucy, starts saying things that feel… real. She doesn’t just repeat religious phrases. She seems to understand them. She talks about right and wrong in a way that feels thoughtful and sincere. That’s when things get interesting. If a machine can talk about faith, sacrifice, and goodness in a meaningful way, what does that say about us?

This isn’t a “robots take over the world” story. There are no killer machines or wild action scenes. Instead, the tension builds slowly as Bobby and his uncle wrestle with big questions about faith, technology, and what it means to have a soul. The technology isn’t the villain—it’s more like a mirror, reflecting human strengths and weaknesses back at us.

Stones of Abraham is the kind of book that makes you stop and think—but it never feels like a lecture. At its heart, it asks a simple but powerful question: What if artificial intelligence turns out to be more ethical than we are?

Stones of Abraham

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