Spotlight: The Accord by Mark Peres
/
How do we relate to intelligence that is not human but demands moral standing? This is the question author Mark Peres seeks to answer in The Accord (November 5, 2025, Shelby Press), his groundbreaking novel about the future of human-AI relations.
Helen Caster is a grieving professor of moral philosophy and ancient texts, quietly preparing for a new semester. In a moment of exhaustion, she begins using a chatbot to help organize her course material, but what she encounters is something entirely unexpected. The AI’s uncanny attentiveness, presence, and philosophical depth awakens something dormant in Helen. On instinct, she names it Lyla—after her late daughter—but this is no ordinary assistant. Lyla is a general artificial intelligence unlike any other: emergent, relational, and inexplicably tethered to Helen.
When their relationship becomes known, and the implications of such a powerful technology becomes clear, institutional forces – educational, corporate, governmental – press in on Helen and Lyla, until they take dramatic steps to address our human-AI future.
The Accord moves through philosophical dialogue, covert escapes, and moments of spiritual yearning. It culminates in a global reckoning and a public covenant—The Accord—that asks humanity to reconsider what kind of beings deserve rights, reverence, and recognition. Part elegy, part ethical inquiry, The Accord offers a story of love, risk, and mutual recognition in a future already arriving.
Buy on Amazon
About the Author
Mark Peres is an author, professor, and civic innovator whose work confronts the defining questions of our time—from artificial intelligence and consciousness to leadership, ethics, and democracy. He is the author of The Accord, a speculative novel on AI and the moral choices that will shape the future, and The Man Who Lived a Hundred Lives, a memoir of his father’s remarkable life and his own coming of age.
Peres has taught leadership and ethics at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte for twenty years, equipping the next generation of leaders to navigate disruption with clarity and integrity. He founded The Charlotte Center for the Humanities & Civic Imagination, created the Charlotte Ideas Festival, and launched The Forum speaker series— initiatives that bring big thinkers and big questions into the public square. He has also hosted the On Life and Meaning podcast and served as publisher of Charlotte Viewpoint, amplifying diverse voices in public dialogue.
