A Review of “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow”, by Yual Noah Harari
Yual Noah Harari teaches at the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is an Israeli professor of history.
Are humans as crafty as they think? Are they really at the top of the food chain dominating the world around us, or could the humans be the one dominated? Yual Noah Harari questions all of this further in Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow which can be construed as a follow up to his previous acclaimed work, “Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind.”
What was ‘Sapiens’ all about that would make ‘Homo Deus’ worth reading? That’s complicated therefore one would have to whet his or her appetite for reading via example. In one memorable part of his book ‘Sapiens,’ Harari goes in depth to describe how wheat domesticated humans, instead of the other way around as most of us think. In short, wheat doesn’t really like stony fields, so it convinced humans to remove the stones. Wheat also doesn’t like competition from other plants or pests, so it convinced humans to remove competitors from its carefully-tended, enclosed fields and develop ways to fend off pests. In the end, we celebrate wheat’s propagation by creating more and more wheat fields, putting the product of wheat on television as good as eat—and the ironic part is, we pay for all their advertising! As far as organisms go, wheat may be one of the most successful in all of life’s history. Who wouldn’t want a life where you could sit and be fawned over all day, cried over if we died, and given celebrity status in supermarkets?
Harari doesn’t just stop with natural history to make his arguments. He also suggests that human creativity is a strength that will eventually lead to a heavy weight that crushes us all. For example, do corporations really exist? According to Harari, no they don’t. Corporations exist only in our imagination, and only because by law we all agreed to believe that they exist. In fact, corporations would cease to exist if the masses decided they were not real. Lots of things fall into this category, Harari argues, such as laws, monsters, God…get the idea yet?
As a continuation, Homo Deus focuses on the future of mankind, but avoids asserting that the described possibilities are inevitable. Pointedly, Harari often repeats throughout his second book that the visions he writes about are by no means set pieces that will all be played out over time.
Homo Deus’ crucial premise is two-fold: 1) that organisms are mathematical algorithms (mathematical compilation of data that when followed in order allow us to understand every detail of something) that, once understood, can be replicated by machines and that 2) “Life is just a bunch of daily data processing.” Humans, Harari argues, aren’t that great at data processing compared to the terrific, yet terrifying technological, totems about to be mass produced.
For those who are thinking, huh, that’s nice, but what does it all mean, Harari describes in terms that we all understand – self-driving cars will replace taxi drivers (and will be better drivers), lawyers will be replaced by computer programs (and will better defend their clients), and science will uncover new procedures that will prolong human life to double the current expected lifespan. There will also be algorithms that may solve the age-old question of true love – matchmaking websites extoll their successes in ads every day.
Harari weaves into his book’s themes other fascinating potential eventualities. For example, he argues that intelligence will be “decoupled” from consciousness. This means that humans won’t be the only ones around with real problem-solving intelligence. As such, there will be competition for jobs, and that the ‘homo-centric’ world we live in could be replaced by a ‘data-centric’ world in which one’s value is measured in the ability to capture, interpret, and use data for progress in whichever field one works in.
All is not pretty in this future world. Solemn questions are asked. For example, what will people do once their jobs are displaced by computer programs or robots? Harari also claims that once we have established algorithms that can more effectively diagnose and prevent diseases and maladies, then the focus of medical science will shift from treatment of the sick to enhancing the lives of the ultra-fortunate who are able to still compete in a data-processing focused world.
Homo Deus does not, however, make predictions about the impact of future world conflicts that lead to war. He does argue that war will not happen again because people will see the value in trading. In the opinion of this reviewer, however, Harari fails to see that his predictions suggest a large population—even larger than today—will not have a job that will pay them enough to adequately compete for the resource of wheat.
Hence what are they supposed to do? Be on the government dole? Get paid to play video games? Or, will they get bored? Will they get bored enough to search out satisfying activities like the search for power, and money? Without the possession of resources, how will they sustain their search if not by warfare? It’s impossible to say what the future will be like, but Hariri does a fantastic job opening eyes to potential realities.
