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3.0 out of 5 starsA mix of deft writing, sweeping ideas and incomplete speculation: 3.5 stars
ByAshutosh S. JogalekarTOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICEon January 5, 2017
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
Yuval Noah Harari's "Homo Deus" continues the tradition introduced in his previous book "Sapiens": clever, clear and humorous writing, intelligent analogies and a remarkable sweep through human history, culture, intellect and technology. In general it is as readable as "Sapiens" but suffers from a few limitations.
On the positive side, Mr. Harari brings the same colorful and thought-provoking writing and broad grasp of humanity, both ancient and contemporary, to the table. He starts with exploring the three main causes of human misery through the ages - disease, starvation and war - and talks extensively about how improved technological development, liberal political and cultural institutions and economic freedom have led to very significant declines in each of these maladies. Continuing his theme from "Sapiens", a major part of the discussion is devoted to shared zeitgeists like religion and other forms of belief that, notwithstanding some of their pernicious effects, can unify a remarkably large number of people across the world in striving together for humanity's betterment. As in "Sapiens", Mr. Harari enlivens his discussion with popular analogies from current culture ranging from McDonald's and modern marriage to American politics and pop music. Mr. Harari's basic take is that science and technology combined with a shared sense of morality have created a solid liberal framework around the world that puts individual rights front and center. There are undoubtedly communities that don't respect individual rights as much as others, but these are usually seen as challenging the centuries-long march toward liberal individualism rather than upholding the global trend.
The discussion above covers about two thirds of the book. About half of this material is recycled from "Sapiens" with a few fresh perspectives and analogies. The most important general message that Mr. Harari delivers, especially in the last one third of the book, is that this long and inevitable-sounding imperative of liberal freedom is now ironically threatened by the very forces that enabled it, most notably the forces of technology and globalization. Foremost among these are artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. These significant new developments are gradually making human beings cede their authority to machines, in ways small and big, explicitly and quietly. Ranging from dating to medical diagnosis, from the care of the elderly to household work, entire industries now stand to both benefit and be complemented or even superseded by the march of the machines. Mr. Harari speculates about a bold vision in which most manual labor has been taken over by machines and true human input is limited only to a very limited number of people, many of whom because of their creativity and demand will likely be in the top financial echelons of society. How will the rich and the poor live in these societies? We have already seen how the technological decimation of parts of the working class was a major theme in the 2016 election in the United States and the vote for Brexit in the United Kingdom. It was also a factor that was woefully ignored in the public discussion leading up to these events, probably because it is much easier to provoke human beings against other human beings rather than against cold, impersonal machines. And yet it is the cold, impersonal machines which will increasingly interfere with human lives. How will social harmony be preserved in the face of such interference? If people whose jobs are now being done by machines get bored, what new forms of entertainment and work will we have to invent to keep them occupied? Man after all is a thinking creature, and extended boredom can cause all sorts of psychological and social problems. If the division of labor between machines and men becomes extreme, will society fragment into H. G. Wells's vision of two species, one of which literally feeds on the other even as it sustains it?
These are all tantalizing as well as concerning questions, but while Mr. Harari does hold forth on them with some intensity and imagination, this part of the book is where his limitations become clear. Since the argument about ceding human authority to machines is also a central one, the omission also unfortunately appears to me to be a serious one. The problem is that Mr. Harari is an anthropologist and social scientist, not an engineer, computer scientist or biologist, and many of the questions of AI are firmly grounded in engineering and software algorithms. There are mountains of literature written about machine learning and AI and especially their technical strengths and limitations, but Mr. Harari makes few efforts to follow them or to explicate their central arguments. Unfortunately there is a lot of hype these days about AI, and Mr. Harari dwells on some of the fanciful hype without grounding us in reality. In short, his take on AI is slim on details, and he makes sweeping and often one-sided arguments while largely skirting clear of the raw facts. The same goes for his treatment for biology. He mentions gene editing several times, and there is no doubt that this technology is going to make some significant inroads into our lives, but what is missing is a realistic discussion of what biotechnology can or cannot do. It is one thing to mention brain-machine interfaces that would allow our brains to access supercomputer-like speeds in an offhand manner; it's another to actually discuss to what extent this would be feasible and what the best science of our day has to say about it.
In the field of AI, particularly missing is a discussion of neural networks and deep learning which are two of the main tools used in AI research. Also missing is a view of a plurality of AI scenarios in which machines either complement, subjugate or are largely tamed by humans. When it comes to AI and the future, while general trends are going to be important, much of the devil will be in the details - details which decide how the actual applications of AI will be sliced and diced. This is an arena in which even Mr. Harari's capacious intellect falls short. The ensuing discussion thus seems tantalizing but does not give us a clear idea of the actual potential of machine technology to impact human culture and civilization. For reading more about these aspects, I would recommend books like Nick Bostrom's "Superintelligence", Pedro Domingos's "The Master Algorithm" and John Markoff's "Machines of Loving Grace". All these books delve into the actual details that sum up the promise and fear of artificial intelligence.
Notwithstanding these limitations, the book is certainly readable, especially if you haven't read "Sapiens" before. Mr. Harari's writing is often crisp, the play of his words is deftly clever and the reach of his mind and imagination immerses us in a grand landscape of ideas and history. At the very least he gives us a very good idea of how far we as human beings have come and how far we still have to go. As a proficient prognosticator Mr. Harari's crystal ball remains murky, but as a surveyor of past human accomplishments his robust and unique abilities are still impressive and worth admiring.
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3.0 out of 5 starsSkip the crass caricature of humanism. Go to Part 3, a disturbing prediction of big-data dystopia.
ByFlatiron Johnon February 17, 2017
Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase
This book is a mixed bag. It has three parts. The first is a review of some of the concepts explored in Harari's earlier book Sapiens. It elaborates on the fascinating concept of "intersubjective reality", whereby concepts that are shared in our collective imagination have great power to shape our objective reality; examples given include money, corporations, pop-culture brands, and religions. Part 1 is engaging and insightful, and deserves 4/5 stars.
Part 2 is a critique of what Harari calls "humanism". He really dislikes humanism: he inaccurately states its tenets, and then repeatedly mocks it (for example, as promoting indulgent consumerism and sex). He claims that humanism is what is giving rise to an emerging cybernetic dystopia, described in Part 3.
Harari is abusing the word "humanism," as a canvas on which to paint his caricature of modern liberal culture ("liberal" in the classical sense, not in the sense of left-wing politics). He is not really interested in what humanist writers and philosophers have actually said, and does not reference their works. He claims that humanism promotes the belief in a supernatural free will (when in fact, humanists value agency and freedom, but have differing opinions on free will). He claims that humanism believes in an indivisible self/soul (when in fact, psychologists since Freud have a different understanding). And he claims that humanism believes that individuals always know best about their own needs (when in fact, many have emphasized the importance of education in our development--he does not even reference John Dewey). Harari also co-opts related terms that already have other established meanings, such as "evolutionary humanism" and "liberal humanism".
If you want to understand humanism or other social-political movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, Harari will lead you astray. Part 2 deserves only 2/5 stars.
Part 3 is a dire prediction for humanity's future, as genetic engineering, AI, and human-machine interface technologies advance. Harari gives several scenarios, each of which are described very plausibly as future extrapolations of current trends. These scenarios are thought provoking and disturbing--we as a society should be taking them more seriously. There is an interesting discussion of an emerging religion/ideology of "dataism", wherein moral worth depends on the ability to enhance data flow, rather than on consciousness. Part 3 deserves 4/5 stars.
For most of the book, Harari appears to be adopting a materialistic perspective, and one which is also extremely unsentimental and discounts the significance of human morale and character. He pretends to assume that human beings are nothing more than algorithms.
However, some of his arguments (against the existence of an indivisible self, against free-will) are similar to those in Buddhism. He also discusses how animals and people have consciousness and subjective experiences, and presumes that artificial intelligence will remain unconscious (the "weak AI" hypothesis of John Searle).
And on the very last page, he makes us wonder if his hardcore materialistic perspective has just been a long, extended ruse: he asks us to question a worldview that would deny the significance of consciousness. So it seems likely that in a future book he will focus on the nature of consciousness, and argue for non-theistic Buddhism (an understated agenda in Harari's writing--perhaps he thinks that this is the way for humanity to avoid the grim fate predicted here?).
The reader concerned about techno-dystopia may also be interested in "Weapons of Math Destruction," by Cathy O'Neil.
[Update 6/13/2017: see the comment below, by kaiser100, for further insight into Harari's perspective on consciousness and meditation. The comment begins with "Harari indeed believes that developing an understanding of consciousness, a science of mind, or however else one wishes to phrase it is the best and perhaps the only way to avert the grim fate that threatens humanity in this century."]
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4.0 out of 5 starsDelightfully terrifying!
ByAlways Trust In Bookson October 30, 2016
Format: Hardcover
Audience: Readers looking ahead to the future and wondering what the world may look like in 100 years. People interested in all aspects of humanity and the science, psychology, technology and politics behind everything we have done, are doing and will do in the future.
Summed up in a few words: Relevant. Unbiased. Necessary.
First Impression: Homo Deus was a book I was really excited to read! The tagline ' A brief history of tomorrow' really intrigued me as I don't really put much thought into my life life years down the line. This book is a must read! Not only does Harari talk about the future, he does so in such a wide spectrum of elements and details that I was impressed by how much information I took in. It also helps that he kept the language to an accessible and easy to read level, though there is technicality in some of the areas of the text. When I finished the book I was stuck between two very distinct and conflicting thoughts, the first was that I am comfortable with the steps that we as humans are taking to secure our futures and the other is that I am massively concerned about our future.
Book Summary/Review
Homo Deus: A Brief History Of Tomorrow is one of many groundbreaking books that are coming out this year that will influence certain non-fiction titles for the next decade or so. I have many of these books on my to-read list but I started with Homo Deus as it seem like a book that would cover all the bases and show me what we as humans are doing to secure our futures on earth and how we plan to do so. Yuval Noah Harari definitely achieves this, though it took a long time to get to sections I really wanted to read.
Homo Deus started off strong, outlining what we have achieved up until today and where we may take life in the future. It did this from many different perspectives from agriculture, technology, economy, geography and medicine to psychology, politics, sociology, existentialism and science and it was incredibly interesting.
Unfortunately for some who already have read a lot of books about human history, Harari does typical 'to see where we are going we must go back to the start' section which for me was slightly irritating but if you know very little about our past, our struggles and how we came to be then you will be very pleased with this section. I know that sounds like a complaint but it is really just a warning, because though it has been covered many times before, I felt that Harari did a great job with this section.
The next section of the book covers how we brought the world to be in the last 2 or 3 centuries and again it has been done before, but Harari has such depth, understanding and control of the subject that I was left thoroughly informed and prepared for the last section, the one I had been waiting for, where are we going!
I was massively impressed with this section, it both made me excited about the future, what technologies, scientific discoveries and biological/medicinal advances we may create or discover. It also scared the hell out of me too, where societies may change, how our life may become automated and where religion may evolve.
I am not sure whether I enjoyed the subject or the author the most when reading this book. I feel that it is the subject overall as it is uncharted territory for me so to speak, I know I read a lot of science fiction but I have never read a book where someone has sat down and outlined all aspects of our actual humanity and extrapolated them into a realistic vision of our future, please let me know if you have read anything like this before.
In terms of content, it is overwhelming, Harari must do nothing but research as he knows more about humanity than I will ever know, but he is so down to earth and treats readers fairly, not bogging everything down in technicality and jargon but bringing the subject down to a comprehensible and comfortable level. This meant I could read this book without having to look up every other word and pretend I understanding what he is saying instead of actually understanding what he is saying.
If you want to know what we went through to get to this point, the famine, the war, the disease and hunger. If you want to know what life truly looks like today with social media, algorithms, happiness, religion and art. And if you want a vivid depiction of what are future may or may not become then Homo Deus is the book you want. I was most impressed with how Harari was so unbiased, he treated each viewpoint and opinion with respect and lets the reader make their own mind up of what to make of each scenario. Also there are great stories and case studies to back up his points as well as images to give the insights some context or texture.
Fortunately this is not an 'all is lost' viewpoint on the future of human existence but it is definitely not all peachy and full of promise. Read the book, see what you think and tell me what you thought on Harari's approach to this topic. I found Homo Deus engaging, thought provoking, extremely concerning and delightfully promising as well.
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3.0 out of 5 starsA Big Jump
ByAmazon Customeron December 19, 2017
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This is a rather long, but interesting historical read of the past and a look into a possible future. The author deals with 'big chunks' of history and attempts to give trends... some creative reading and definitely insightful and interesting. He also looks into the future... where all of us will be going - or at least those who live in developed countries - and even there, those who can afford it.
The author has no inclusion of spirituality or religions, except to say their time has past. I don't think he can prove that, but it's his read.
Worth just reading for new ideas and trends.
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1.0 out of 5 starsInaccurate and Fallacious
ByDr. Flowerson February 21, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
I was disturbed to learn that in Harari's new book, Homo Deus, he ponders how future technologies will reshape humanity. This is a topic that Harari, a scholar of 15th century military history, is not especially qualified to discuss. If you’re into science fiction, read science fiction, not Harari.
To demonstrate how off-base Home Deus is likely to be, allow me to dwell on the penultimate chapter of Sapiens, as it deals with modern biology and neuroscience, my areas of expertise, to illustrate the superficiality of Harari's arguments. His examples of this brave new world in which we now live are curated from the most sensationalist science reporting. He talks of the art-project rabbit, Alba, designed to express a green fluorescent protein. He also mentions the famous "Vacanti mouse" with what looks like a human ear growing on its back (in fact, this is cartilage that has been grown inside an ear-shaped mold and implanted into a mouse's back--sort of neat, but only slightly more impressive than stapling something shaped like an ear to the back of a mouse). These are two odd examples, as they aren't really reflective of current cutting edge science but are perfect examples of what might morally outrage someone who does not clearly understand what they really are. What?! An artist can just make a designer rabbit? No, an artist didn't make the rabbit. What?! Is that a human ear growing on a mouse's back? No. It isn't, it's a thing shaped like an ear that someone implanted in a mouse.
Harari’s view of contemporary biology and neuroscience are more shaped by The Matrix and Jurassic Park than real academic research. Here is an example, "A team of Russian, Japanese, and Korean scientists has recently mapped the genome of ancient mammoths, found frozen in the Siberian ice. They now plan to take a fertilized egg-cell of a present-day elephant, replace the elephantine DNA with a reconstructed mammoth DNA, and implant the egg in the womb of an elephant." He lazily, and incorrectly, cites an article from Time magazine as his source. This, in fact, is not what the article is about, and almost everything in that quote is untrue. This team did not sequence the mammoth genome, they would not use fertilized eggs of recipients, and they would not use reconstructed mammoth DNA (as the technology does not exist to synthesize a mammoth genome from scratch). Instead, they hoped to find living mammoth cells containing an entire intact genome, then inject the nucleus of such a cell into an unfertilized elephant egg, hope it starts dividing, and implant that into an elephant womb. Here are the unknowns with respect to this task—the probability of finding mammoth cells that are thousands of years old but still have fully intact nuclei (impossible to estimate, but improbably small), the success rate of any elephant egg dividing after being injected with mammoth DNA (the rate for division after living mouse-to-mouse egg nuclear transfer is only a few percent), the probability that this nuclear-transfer derived egg would continue to divide after being implanted in an elephant womb (improbably small). In short, the captive population of elephants is too small to provide enough donor eggs and potential surrogate mothers to even consider performing this foolhardy project, yet, Harari, with his head full of ideas that he misunderstood from Time, seems to think that it’s just a matter of months before the mammoth will be resurrected. (I should note that, since the publication of Sapiens, several labs have found ways to investigate the function of individual mammoth genes inside modern elephant cells—but to say that this is recreating a mammoth is more extreme than saying that Alba, the fluorescent rabbit, is a perfect reconstruction of a jellyfish).
Similiarly, Harari cites George Church's claim that he could make a Neanderthal child for $30 million. For the same reasons, the technology does not exist to synthesize a 3+ billion base genome de novo. At current DNA synthesis costs, it would require $100 million to carry out this synthesis as thousands or millions of fragments, which then couldn't be coherently assembled into something like a genome. No multicellular organism has ever been created with a synthetic genome, and human embryos would be the last place to start testing the possibility. Whether this is something that may eventually be technically possible is not important, as there are so many ethical hurdles to even begin the proof-of-principle research that it’s safe to say this isn’t going to happen unless someone first clones Josef Mengele and installs him as the head of the National Institutes of Health. I assume that Harari believes that since humans are so cruel as to practice industrial farming, it is inevitable that they will permit hundreds or thousands of failed pregnancies to relish in the glory of a Neanderthal. Again, Harari ignorantly suggests that the question is not whether this is possible but how many days until there is a new underclass of Neanderthals.
Harari’s inability to discern science fiction from science fact extends into the world of neuroscience. He writes, "Yet of all the projects currently under development, the most revolutionary is the attempt to devise a direct two-way brain computer interface that will allow computers to read the electrical signals of a human brain, simultaneously transmitting signals that the brain can read in turn." He then supposes that in the very near future, people will be able to store their minds on external hard drives, and all human minds can be linked to form a super brain. While the quoted sentence is superficially true, it is not revolutionary. It should come as a surprise to no one that there are techniques like EEG and MRI that can crudely measure brain activity. It is also true that localized magnetic stimulation can affect one’s brain and even make someone perceive flashes of light. If you hook an MRI up to a computer which is, in turn, hooked up to a magnet on someone's head, you have made the technology that can make one person’s brain activity make another person see a flash of light. That is a stupid parlor trick and not something to fear.
Now let’s consider Harari’s extension of this gimmick--- the notion that we could record someone’s mind. Current brain recording technologies amount to something like a Fitbit for your brain--an EEG or MRI can crudely determine when and how much your brain is active. Harari seems to believe that technology soon will exist permitting complete brain-state knowledge. Imagine if a device could record the state of every cell of your brain. First, you would never want such a device implanted into your own head, because it would consist of 100 billion pins stabbing into your brain and would kill you. Second, the output of this machine would be completely useless. A recording of all of the activity of every brain cell for the entirety of someone’s life would be a bunch of numbers, would represent a minuscule portion of the information processing that the brain actually does, and is impossible, anyways. To speculate about what this means about humanity is to waste one’s time.
I have not yet completed Homo Deus, but I find it to be more well cited and more cautious than Sapiens. Nonetheless, I continue to find that his standard argument structure is: "X is not technically impossible; therefore, X is inevitable." When he rightfully notes that experts argue that genetically engineered babies or human-level AI are distant possibilities, he dismisses this as short-sightedness and argues that what scientists really mean by "distant" is "a few years." After all, he argues, when he first encountered the Internet in 1993, he didn't appreciate how great it would be in 2017. Is it just me, or is this comparison a bit arrogant? A modern-day neuroscientist's understanding of what is realistically possible in the field of artificial intelligence is the same as high-school-aged Harari's understanding of what the internet would be like in 25 years? This implies that high-school-aged Harari was a scholar of computer science and its history.
He speculates that a la carte selection of the traits of your offspring is the near-certain next step from any DNA-editing-based correction of illness or disease. This seems to assume that the risk-to-reward ratio of correcting Hungtington's disease via gene editing is similar to that of eliminating freckles via gene editing. While Harari argues that it is a slippery slope leading from the former to the latter, one could argue that the latter is one-million times less practical or morally acceptable. The slope is both long and shallow to the extent that Harari's belief in the inevitability of commonplace cosmetic human genetic engineering arising from efforts to correct disease is like saying that birth control is dangerous because it will inevitably lead to widespread incest.
Harari is somewhat engaging, but I can't help but find his overgeneralizations irksome. When Harari talks about cutting-edge neuroscience, more often than not, he cites a newspaper or a website rather than a peer-reviewed publication. Then, he often paraphrases the part of the article in which a researcher wildly speculates about the future implications of her research as if it is a subject of active investigation. He glides along from topic to topic so that it becomes difficult to discern fact from wild prediction. This is a troubling trend as it makes the pursuit of knowledge about the function of genes or the organization of the brain seem like part of a nefarious, soon-to-be-realized plot to design an immortal class of cyborg elites.
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5.0 out of 5 starsAnother provocative Harari book, with an original view about where Humanking is going to...if we don't pay attention!
ByV. Guardiolaon January 14, 2018
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Inspired and provocative, Harari looks towards the future of humankind (after his stunning reveiw of its past, with "Sapiens").
An inspiring read, even if one does not necessarily agrees with his projections (and Harari does not expect everyone to agree!). His views about AI and the "Singularity" are not what one would expect, ie they are original. Pessimistic about the future, but without overplaying the fear of a machine-ran Big Brother: risk is rather that humakind slips into non-relevance, slowly and willingly... With a few superhuman winning-it-all.
Another book that does not look like any other one, and, according to me, a must read.
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4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars
ByGregon March 12, 2017
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Lots of great food for thought.
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5.0 out of 5 starsExplanatory, not judgmental
ByMatthew H.on January 4, 2018
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While the scope of this book is immense, Yuval has done an excellent job of keeping it well organized. Reading a book like this may blow your mind, but it won't blow it apart. My father said it is difficult, it made him think. Excellent, that's why I bought it for him.
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5.0 out of 5 starsInteresting and entertaining. A great read.
ByRobertoon December 25, 2017
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It’s funny reading some of the other reviews. People always get worked up when matters of belief and prediction come into focus. No matter how you slice it, Yuval’s book is informative and fun to read. Just like Sapiens, it’s delightful to read. It’s filled with lots of interesting history and great analogies that explain his points very well. I got a lot out of this book and look forward to reading his next one.
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5.0 out of 5 starsThis is a must read book for everyone today!
ByJoe Santanaon April 27, 2017
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This is an amazing book because it does more than supply a narrative for understanding our place in the universe. It's great because it makes us ponder the most important questions about the present and future meaning of ourselves and our evolving role in this universe or possibly multiverse.
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