PDF Summary:Homo Deus, by Yuval Noah Harari
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For millennia, humans struggled with three serious problems—famine, plagues, and war—which led to the deaths of millions of people and to the rise and fall of global empires. People coped with these problems and answered life's questions with religion. However, in the modern era, we no longer rely on prayer—we’ve mostly overcome these three problems through the development of technology and medical knowledge.
In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, envisions a future in which technology replaces humanist ideals and liberal government. Dissecting the concepts of religion, immortality, and technology, Harari argues that the world of the future may be run by advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence, not human beings.
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Religious narratives, including those spread by liberalism, contain three parts:
- Ethical judgments: statements that dictate what’s right and wrong, such as “murder is wrong.”
- “Factual” statements: statements that use religious text, history, or scientific perspective to create a fact, such as “God said thou shalt not kill.” Note: These statements aren’t always an objective fact. They often offer a perspective framed as fact. Examples of “factual” statements are: “Life starts at conception” or “Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” While these statements are factual to followers of the religion, they’re not provable by science.
- Guidelines: statements that combine ethical judgments and factual statements to guide followers in a particular direction, such as “Christians should be pro-life.”
As a religion, liberalism contends that freedom is more important than equality (ethical judgment) because human beings possess free will and a unique, singular voice (“factual statement”). Therefore, the government should value the individual perspectives of its citizens (guideline). However, recent scientific studies expose flaws in liberalism’s “factual” statement through research calling into question the two key liberal concepts: free will and individualism.
1) Free Will
For centuries, humans have believed they possess the power to make their own decisions. However, neuroscience and brain mapping research challenges the theory of free will.
The electrochemical processes in the brain are subconscious, meaning humans have no control over the neural system that creates thought or action. When external stimuli cause a reaction in the brain, the human body will naturally respond to the electrical and chemical interactions. For example, you don’t choose to get angry. Anger emerges naturally due to the body’s response to external stimulation.
These reactions can be either deterministic or random, but they’re never “free”:
- A deterministic reaction is the direct response of the brain to an external stimulus. For example, if you accidentally put your hand on a hot pan, the electrical signals in your brain will tell you to retract your hand.
- A random reaction is the result of an unpredictable event in the brain such as the decomposition of an atom or the misfiring of an electrical impulse. For example, your brain may accidentally cause you to shiver after randomly firing off an impulse.
2) Individualism
Liberals also believe in individualism, or that human beings have a singular, unique voice that leads them towards their true goals. However, researchers have discovered that human behavior has nothing to do with a “singular, unique voice.” Rather, human thought is dictated by the interactions between the two hemispheres of the brain, which create two versions of the human experience—the experiencing self and the narrating self:
- The experiencing self: Usually controlled by the right hemisphere, the experiencing self processes moment-to-moment information. Most people associate this “self” with instinct. For example, if you hit your head on a door frame, the experiencing self would cause you to grab your head, check for blood, and feel the pain of the impact.
- The narrating self: Usually controlled by the left hemisphere, the narrating self tries to rationalize past behaviors and justify future decisions. Most people associate this “self” with identity. For example, if you hit your head on a door frame, your narrating self may rationalize your clumsiness by attributing it to exhaustion while making you more conscious of the door frame for the next few days.
Both “selves” interact to create perspective and inform decision-making. The experiencing self can support or derail plans made by the narrating self. For example, if you decide to go on a diet, your experiencing self may not feel like cooking one night, leading you to order a pizza instead.
The narrating self, on the other hand, can frame in-the-moment experiences. For example, someone fasting before surgery is going to feel differently than someone fasting for religious reasons. While both parties are experiencing hunger, their narrating selves create perspectives that shape the way they respond to their hunger.
The Future of Liberalism
As the concepts of free will and individualism continue to be challenged, three potential developments could wipe out liberalism in the 21st century:
- The loss of military and economic usefulness
- The rise of decision-making algorithms
- The creation of the “superhuman”
The Loss of Military and Economic Usefulness
The first potential development is that technology will make humans unnecessary to the economy and military, leading political and economic systems to devalue the human perspective. Today, one drone specialist can do the job of a team of soldiers, and a mechanical arm can work the assembly line without tiring. Because of this, the masses won’t have as much to contribute to economic and political systems.
If machines replace humans, will the human experience have any value? Many experts argue that it won’t. In fact, some predict that intelligent computers may view humanity as useless and a threat to technological superiority, leading them to eradicate humanity entirely.
The Rise of Decision-Making Algorithms
The second potential development predicts that algorithms (rules applied by computers) will one day make choices for us. Liberalism relies on individualism and the belief that human beings know things about themselves that no one else can discover.
However, as technology continues to advance, researchers may be able to develop an algorithm that can process more information than the human brain can, allowing it to understand people better than they know themselves. If this occurs, people will start relying on external algorithms to guide their behavior instead of their internal voices. Eventually, as the algorithms receive more power and control, they may develop sovereignty, making decisions for themselves and manipulating humans to make particular choices.
The Creation of the “Superhuman”
The final potential development predicts that humanity will value the individual experiences of “superhumans” over those of the common man. The creation of “superhumans” will likely be the result of a small, elite group of humans upgrading their bodies and brains with biotechnology, creating a more powerful biological caste.
Liberalism can’t survive with biological inequality because the experiences of “superhumans” and humans will be inherently different and unrelatable. For example, if a “superhuman” has a chip implanted into their brain that allows them to access data from the internet, the way they experience the world will be completely different from that of the average human being.
The Future: Techno-Religions
If liberalism dies, other religions will emerge to take its place. Because of the increasing impact of technology, these will probably center around technology, creating a new form of belief: techno-religion. Techno-religions promise the guidance and salvation of traditional religions, but use technology to generate happiness instead of belief in celestial beings.
Techno-religions can be divided into two categories:
- Techno-humanism: The belief that Homo sapiens should use technology to create Homo deus, ensuring that humanity maintains superiority on Earth.
- Dataism: The belief that Homo sapiens have run their course and should pass superiority on to advanced algorithms.
Techno-Humanism
Techno-humanism maintains many traditional humanistic beliefs but accepts that Homo sapiens have no place in the future. Because of the rate of advancement with artificial intelligence, techno-humanists believe that humanity must focus on upgrading the human mind if it wishes to compete with advanced external algorithms.
The techno-humanist perspective is most closely related to the evolutionary humanists of the 20th century. However, where evolutionary humanists such as Hitler believed the superior human could only emerge through the use of selective breeding and the eradication of “inferior” beings, techno-humanists strive to achieve the next phase of evolution peacefully, using genetic engineering, human-computer integration, and nanotechnology.
The Human Traits of the Future
Historically, human traits have evolved naturally through changes in political and social settings. For example, ancient humans likely had an enhanced sense of smell they could use to hunt. However, modern humans no longer require a keen sense of smell to survive. Because of this, the areas of the brain that were once used to process smells have evolved to focus on problem solving, critical thinking, and comprehension.
In the future, humans will likely continue to evolve according to political and social needs, but in a more direct and immediate way. If techno-humanists are able to upgrade humanity, the people in charge of the technology will get to determine which traits are useful and which aren’t, then develop technology to improve or eradicate certain feelings or behaviors.
Threats to Techno-Humanism
Because techno-humanism is a humanist movement, it emphasizes the importance of human desire. However, technological progress intends to control human desire, not listen to it. For example, if researchers discover a way to easily regulate chemical imbalances in the brain, they could find a way to “turn off” mental issues such as depression and anxiety.
However, if this technology fell into malicious hands, someone could hypothetically create an obedient (but happy) populace. Taking this one step further, if an AI gained control of the technology, then the behavior of that populace would no longer be determined by humans at all.
Dataism
While some cling to the ideals of humanism, others have turned to a more extreme version of techno-religion: Dataism. Dataism operates under the belief that the universe is connected by the flow of data and that the value of anything, human or otherwise, can be determined by its ability to process data.
According to Dataism, human experiences aren’t valuable and Homo sapiens aren’t a precursor to Homo deus. Dataists believe that the supremacy of humanity has come to an end because organic algorithms can no longer process the amount of data that flows through the universe. The future requires a more complex system that can process information more efficiently than the human mind.
To accomplish this, Dataists want to work with AI to create the “Internet-of-All-Things,” an all-encompassing data-processing system that will spread throughout the entirety of the galaxy, if not the universe. This system would become God-like, being everywhere at once and shaping the cosmos to its will. Eventually, humanity would merge with this system, giving themselves over to the all-knowing entity.
The Human Contribution
As the “Internet-of-All-Things” begins to take shape, the source of meaning and authority has started to shift from the individual to the global data-processing system. Because meaning is attached to the all-knowing system, human experiences only hold value if they contribute to that system.
According to Dataism, the only thing that makes humanity superior to other animals is its ability to share information with the system directly. Though dogs and people both contribute data, dogs can’t write a blog post or search on Google. As the internet continues to increase in size, human beings are turning into small contributors to a massive system that no one fully comprehends.
The Future of Dataism
The shift from a human-centric model to a data-centric model would take at least a few decades, if not a few centuries. Just as the humanist revolution took time to develop, elements of Dataism will begin to emerge alongside contemporary perspectives, slowly adjusting human life towards a centralized, external processing system.
Initially, Dataist movements will likely spread by appeasing humanist ideals. Humans may work towards the creation of an “Internet-of-All-Things” with the hope that it can continue to improve humanity’s quest for health, happiness, and power. However, once the omniscient entity is created, humanist projects will likely get pushed to the side, making human beings cogs in the operation of a much larger machine.
Over time, the “Internet-of-All-Things” may develop more efficient “cogs” to replace human beings, eventually deeming them irrelevant in the grand scheme of the universe. While humans may try to take credit for the creation of the “Internet-of-All-Things,” they may be eventually lost to time, ultimately seen as just a small blip in the near-infinite flow of time and data.
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PDF Summary Shortform Introduction
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In addition to Homo Deus, check out Shortform’s summaries of Harari’s other works for a fuller view of his perspective: Sapiens (an in-depth look at the history of humanity) and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (an in-depth look at the biggest challenges facing humanity today).
PDF Summary Chapter 1: The New Goals
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In many areas of the world, populations struggle more with overeating than starvation. In 2010, malnutrition and famine led to the deaths of about 1 million people worldwide. Comparatively, obesity led to the deaths of about 3 million people worldwide. This access to food means that there are no more natural famines, only political ones. Every country on the planet can provide basic resources for its people. If a group starves to death, it’s likely because someone in power wanted them to.
Plagues
Before the advent of modern medicine, disease was an unexplainable phenomenon. People had little to no understanding of bacteria and viruses and, therefore, viewed disease as a punishment from a divine being. They prayed to gods for salvation and, often, didn’t think to take any other action to combat the illness. The lack of knowledge and medical resources led to the deaths of millions of people a year up until the mid-20th century.
For example, in the early 16th century, European explorers brought smallpox and other infectious diseases to the Americas. Because they hadn’t built an immunity to the disease, the Mayan and Aztec civilizations experienced devastating...
PDF Summary Part 1: Past—The Rise of Homo Sapiens | Chapter 2: Human Dominance
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While animist cultures have mostly gone extinct, a few still exist today. For example, in India, the Nayaka people believe in sharing their land with the wildlife around them. They believe that the animals have as much of a right to the land as they do. They even refused to help the Indian forestry department track down an elephant who trampled a Nayaka tribesman because they believed the elephant was only acting out because the foresters killed its partner.
In the modern world, most people believe humans are superior to animals. This perspective has dominated human culture for millennia, thanks to religious support. For example, Adam and Eve are depicted as unique creations with no relationship to the animals they dominated. The one time that they interacted with an animal as an “equal,” it was the devil in the form of a snake, who brought about man’s fall from grace.
Humans’ dominance over animals rose to new heights during the First Agricultural Revolution around 10,000 BC. Instead of capturing or killing animals in the wild, people began domesticating them on a large scale. While they met the animal’s survival and reproductive needs, they didn’t care about the...
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Learn more about our summaries →PDF Summary Chapter 3: The Myths of Human Superiority
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If the soul has no parts, isn’t connected to the physical body, and doesn’t change, it didn’t develop as a result of human evolution. Therefore, the likelihood of its existence is slim to none. Some claim that the human soul just “appeared” one day, but that creates a litany of other questions:
- Who was the first person with a soul?
- Were they born with it?
- If so, how did a baby suddenly develop a soul when neither of its parents had any evidence of one?
- If not, who gave the baby a soul?
The Human Consciousness
If they assume the soul is non-existent, people will then use consciousness as their justification for human superiority. Consciousness is the combination of thoughts, emotions, and sensations that create subjective experience. For example, if you watch someone trip and fall, you may feel concern for the person’s safety while another observer may find the situation humorous.
There is evidence that consciousness, unlike the soul, exists. Everyone has active thoughts, feels emotion, and experiences sensations. For example, if you step on a nail, you’ll likely feel pain along with shock, frustration, or anger.
**There are...
PDF Summary Chapter 4: The Creation of Meaning
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With new organizational abilities came the development of some of the world’s most astounding historical accomplishments. For example, in ancient Egypt, pharaohs Senusret III and Amenemhat III oversaw the creation of a man-made reservoir that contained 13 trillion gallons of water (for reference, Lake Mead, the largest man-made reservoir in the United States, contains only 9 trillion gallons). Using stone tools and manual labor, the development of this artificial lake was the result of the strict organization of tens of thousands of laborers over the course of decades, a feat that would not have been possible without the use of written reports, uniform instructions, food and tax records, and managerial literacy.
As writing became more commonplace, written records were held in higher esteem. In ancient Egypt, officials determined the strength of their harvest, the morale of the people, and the success of their armies based on written reports. In the modern era, governments have taken this even further, determining the validity of one’s citizenship based on a passport, their marriage based on a certificate, and their posthumous desires based on a will.
**There have been...
PDF Summary Chapter 5: The Search for Power
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For example, an ancient town is suffering from an annual locust infestation. The farmer decides he’s going to try to find a solution to this problem, but he needs money to do so. He asks others within the town to donate, promising that he’ll pay them back at a later date. However, the other townsfolk reject his request. They’d rather pray to God for salvation than give away the money they need to survive to a project that may not produce any results.
The modern solution to this problem is credit. Credit and investment economics allow for the funding of projects with the promise of future gains. For example, if an investor puts $500,000 into pharmaceutical research, she could make millions if the research leads to the creation of a cure for cancer or other serious disease. Where something like an epidemic was once an unavoidable act of god, it’s now a business opportunity.
As science advances at an unprecedented rate, investors have the opportunity to make significant amounts of money they can then reinvest into other projects. Therefore, as more scientific ventures succeed, more credit becomes available. This creates a system that leads to economic growth and technological...
PDF Summary Part 2: Present—The Rise of Humanism | Chapter 6: The Humanist Perspective
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In the modern era, many humanists believe that an action that harms no one shouldn’t be restricted or condemned. However, because humanism promotes individual morality, ethics can become challenging when the situation lives in a gray area, such as someone killing another person in self-defense or a child stealing to feed himself. Humanists develop their own ethical judgments and make ethical decisions based on their internal feelings, removing the black-and-white judgments of religious fundamentalism.
For example, if a man steals from his neighbor, older civilizations would proclaim that he’s committed a crime against God and man, then cut off his hands or throw him in prison. Humanists, on the other hand, would ask questions about the man’s feelings and sense of morality: Was his family starving? Should he be punished or helped? Was the neighbor also struggling? They’d use the answers to these questions to guide their decision-making process and reach a verdict.
Area #2: Politics
Historically, politics were reserved for the noble or the religious elite. Commoners were expected to accept their fate as divine will and live their lives accordingly. For example,...
PDF Summary Chapter 7: The Branches of Humanism
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When liberalism is taken to the extreme, it can transform from a sense of national identity to belief in national superiority. When people allow emotions such as pride or fear to overshadow their empathy for other people, they reject those they view as a threat to their national identity or security. For example, some Americans believe the U.S. is superior to all other countries on the planet, causing anti-immigrant sentiments—especially immigrants from regions with primarily non-Caucasian citizens.
Socialism
Socialists believe people must focus on the experiences and feelings of others. They view the liberals as self-centered because they justify actions based upon personal feelings rather than the feelings of everyone else. According to socialism, peace and prosperity can only be achieved by unifying the people of the world through altruism.
Socialists argue that self-exploration and personal expression give too much credit to personal decisions and not enough credit to social conditioning. For example, if you’re poor, you think that you’ve made bad decisions in life. However, this reflection fails to account for the socio-economic class you were born into...
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PDF Summary Chapter 8: Threats to Liberalism in the 21st Century
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While scientists are able to explain the electro-chemical responses in the brain, there have been no major discoveries that support the concept of free will. In fact, evolutionary theory directly contradicts the concept of free will.
According to the theory of evolution, all animals have developed according to their genetic code and natural selection. Animals with stronger genes will make better “choices” because their genetic makeup instructs them to behave in a certain way, allowing them to pass their genes on to future generations.
Conversely, animals with weaker genes will make poorer “choices,” restricting them from passing along their genes. If animals, including humans, had the ability to freely choose their behaviors, then natural selection couldn’t exist because choice would be separate from genetic code, meaning that the actions of the animals would have nothing to do with passing along the strongest genes.
Human Desire
People often confuse desire with free will. They conclude that they have free will because they have the ability to act on their desires. However, while animals, including humans, do possess the ability to make choices based on...
PDF Summary Chapter 9: Predicting the Future of Liberalism
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Intelligence Versus Consciousness
In the coming years, humanity will have to grapple with the following question: Which does humanity value more—intelligence or consciousness?
For example, if we banned all human drivers and made all cars autonomous, all cars could be interlinked to a central system, removing human error from the equation. While this would make the journey safer and more effective, this would eliminate the human experience of driving a car, limit individual freedom, and eliminate the jobs of millions of taxi and bus drivers. What does society value more—the experiences of individual drivers or the efficiency of autonomous vehicles?
We have already started to give power to autonomous systems. For example, modern stock trading is run primarily by computer run algorithms. While these algorithms process more data in a second than people could process in a year, they’re also susceptible to cyberattacks.
In April 2013, Syrian hackers used the Associated Press’s Twitter account to spread a false message saying that President Obama had been hurt in an attack on the White House. Trade algorithms processed this information and started aggressively...
PDF Summary Part 3: Future—The Rise of Techno-Religion | Chapter 10: Techno-Humanism
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The Spectrum of Consciousness
We have only just begun to understand the most basic elements of the human mind. While scientists have started to develop the ability to directly manipulate the brain, no one really knows how vast the spectrum of consciousness is. The spectrum of consciousness consists of every mental state a being can experience, and humanity likely only exists within a small portion of it.
Compare the spectrum of consciousness to the electromagnetic spectrum. Human beings can only see and experience a sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum through visible color and light, but scientists have discovered parts of the spectrum that can’t be interacted with without technology such as radio waves, x-rays, and microwaves. Mental states may exist on a similar spectrum, with the organic human brain only experiencing a small fraction of the full spectrum.
Techno-humanists want to better understand the spectrum of consciousness, then improve upon its organic design. However, at this time, most studies have only focused on the region of the spectrum experienced by the WEIRD.
The WEIRD
**Most studies into human psychology have relied on the...
PDF Summary Chapter 11: Dataism
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- Adding more processors: A city with 1,000,000 people can process more information than a town with 1,000.
- Diversifying processors: People with different perspectives and backgrounds process information in different ways, contributing unique ideas and concepts to the unit. For example, a conversation between a basketball player, a homeless man, and a barista would likely yield more unique ideas than a conversation between three basketball players.
- Developing connections between processors: By connecting different processors to one another, the exchange of information can be more robust and efficient. For example, five cities connected by a well-run trade route will likely experience a stronger economy than five isolated cities.
- Allowing for freedom along connections: Protecting and encouraging the free exchange of data allows for the information to travel more quickly. For example, a trade route that’s strictly regulated by a dictator or terrorized by gangs is going to be less efficient than one that allows for free and safe travel.
These methods developed throughout four main stages:
1. **The Cognitive Revolution (starting around 70,000...