Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah HarariMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is my last and final book of Yuval Noah Harari. Ideally, you should read Sapiens first, as it is about the past, 21 Lessons for the 21st century second, and Homo Deus at last as it is about the future. I don’t think Yuval has done great justice to the title, though he makes it very clear that he doesn’t try to predict the future exactly. The problem arises when he tries to paint an exaggerated picture of our possible futures. I think this happens so, because, Yuval Noah Harari is a historian and not a futurist or a technology guy.
This book is broadly divided into three sections. Homo Sapiens conquers the world, and then Homo Sapiens gives meaning to the world, and finally, there comes a stage where Homo Sapiens loses control of the world. In the first section, he explains how Homo Sapiens became the most powerful animals on the planet earth, just because they had the ability to cooperate in very large numbers. In the second section, he talks about the power of fictional entities such as money, corporations, etc, and how they rule our world, and in the final section, he contemplates how we may lose control of the technological Frankenstein monsters that we have created, especially AI.
This is how the book starts: It was the third century millennium, and humanity personified wakes up from a dream and contemplates the human conditions of the distant past. It finds that human beings would usually die for three main reasons. They are Epidemics, Violence, and Famine. He goes on to explain how those three main causes, at different points of time would wipe off as much as 5-10 percent, even 15 percent of the population, and this trend continued for ages together.
Until the dawn of the 20th century, when, aided by scientific advancements, we put an end to some of the deadly epidemics such as smallpox, for example, managed to find the solutions for famine and increase the agricultural production much folds and as far as violence is concerned, though the 20th century saw some of the deadliest wars in the history of mankind, we can safely infer that violence has been on the decline. Even the famous Stephen Pinker noted for the book The Better Angels of our Nature makes the same point.
Then something interesting happened. Epidemics, violence, and famine were replaced by Peace, Prosperity, and longevity. If you take the aspect of peace, we live in the most peaceful times ever before. Though skirmishes happen here and there at certain parts of the world, it is not severed and rampant as it used to be in the distant past. Most of the nations especially the giants such as India and China have lifted themselves out of extreme poverty and are on the way to becoming substantial players in the international arena. The life span of humans has increased from 40 in the medieval ages to 80 presently. So far, so good.
Now that we have made such a great transition from poverty to prosperity, epidemics and early death to longevity and good health, what the human will aim from now is Immortality, the divinization of humans, and happiness. Divinization here means humans acquiring superhuman capabilities aided by technology. The problem I have with the happiness part is that happiness is an elusive phenomenon. We should strive for meaning in life and not happiness. Just because we have doubled the life span from 40 to 80, doesn’t mean we can increase the life span again from 80 to 160, no matter how sophisticated we become in terms of technology. Because the scaling laws kick in.
We will achieve immortality and divinization primarily through 3 means according to Harari: biological engineering, cyborg engineering, and non-organic engineering. Biological engineering will be powered by nanotechnology and genetic engineering. Cyborg engineering will take place by fusing technology with biology and non-organic engineering is nothing but AI and ML. The real threat will emerge when the AI algorithms become so smart that they will go on to outwit human beings. I don’t subscribe to this view though.
What I like about Harari is his way of explaining even the most sophisticated concepts in the form of the simplest metaphors. Take terrorism for instance. He says that we should be worried more about the overreaction to terrorism than terrorism itself. He weaves a beautiful metaphor to explain this. There was a housefly that wanted to slide off a teacup in a china shop which is full of cutleries made of porcelain. But, it cannot do on its own. So, what it does is finds a bull nearby and buzz in its ear. The bull, irritated by it, in a fit of rage destroys the entire china shop. The phenomenon of terrorism is very well explained indeed. But the reality is far from the ideal scenario. Sometimes, it pays to call spade a spade, and I have my reservations on this topic.
Apart from that, the book has interesting lines such as Coca-cola is more dangerous than Al Qaeda and glucose is more dangerous than nuclear weapons. Those statements are very much true. Diabetes, obesity, and suicide kill more people than war and violence. But does that mean all of his claims about the possible futures that we might have been true? I doubt that. Not because the book lacks scientific or statistical rigor, but the claims sound more like a hyperbolic version of our future.
If you ask me, if this book is a good read, I would be a bit baffled because I don’t know what to say. Yes, if You have read Harari’s earlier books, you would definitely enjoy this one. As far as the technical soundness of the facts presented in this book is concerned, I have my reservations So, the rest is up to you.
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