As a first time reader of the author Yuval Noah Harari, I was pleasantly surprised by the depth, reach and overall readability of Nexus, his latest book. The throughline for this book is how the structure of information networks through human history has evolved from requiring human input into the current state where machines can act on their own accord and AI seems poised to take over. There is actually not much in this book that has not been examined before however the presentation makes the material considerably easier to comprehend and absorb than that of many previous works .Additionally, it is a real pleasure to be presented with a book that encourages intellectual pursuits without promoting the pretensions and barriers to access that so often accompany them. Readers who want to understand more deeply how the management of information has, does and will structure our everyday experiences are will find something of value here.


4.5 stars rounded to 4

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Random House Publishing Group , for providing me with an eARC in Exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book. I did not enjoy this book, but also think it should be required reading for anyone living in the modern age. I found the premise of this book on the importance of information and the systems we use to organize was so timely and relevant for humanity's next big leap in information and data analysis. It also reminded me of why I almost exclusively read fantasy. This was a terrifying look at AI, the negative forces that are undermining democracy and freedom in social media and the amount of surveillance and behavior control that is already occurring. I thought it was fascinating how he explained the naive view of more information always being a good thing ignores how information can be misinterpreted, misused, and ignored. As someone who is old enough to remember a world before Facebook and Google, I remember how optimistic and excited we were for these new tools and tech without even sparing a thought for the implications of what social media, data mining, and optimized searches would be over time. I think it was a good choice for the author to bring up this past shortsightedness when talking about the current development of AI.
I really appreciated how the book did not end on a negative note, but offered concrete action items and solutions for some of the problems our new advances in information technology and data analysis. The concerning part is that the reasonable solutions he proposed do not seem likely given the precarious state of the world right now. I also thought Harari's perspective was really unique and fascinating and I will definitely be picking up more of his books.

Alright, I received a cipy through NetGalley quite a while ago, and just didn't get to post an actual review until now. Which I should've done at the time for sure. Oh well. I still remember enough of the book, in any case, to be able to do so now.

This isn't the first book by Harari that I read. Regardless of what one may think of the research itself, there is no denying that this author has a knoack for storytelling and for grabbing a reader's attention (in a good way), all things that are a strong point when it comes to non fiction just as well as for fiction. Especially on the theme if information networks and their latest child (so to speak), the artificial intelligence, a pretty current topic.

Overall, it was quite an interesting read, and one that I would recommend, even though it wasn't my favourite one by Harari—the latter being caused, perhaps, by the amount of information in the book, which means that each piece couldn't be prodded in much depth. It does give food for thought, though, and a foundation for a reader to go and do more research on this or that aspect of it—sometimes, all we need is the idea of "check this out" for us to realise that, well, said topic is A Thing. That said, if you're looking for something with, well, more depth and deeper analysis, this is not the book.

This book was really far-ranging. I enjoyed thinking of all of the topics Noah-Harari connected throughout the book. I really enjoyed his discussion about how the spread of information can make a big difference to how societies function. Lots to think about for the future.

This was a wonderful book. Only once in a lifetime does a book this applicable to our times and conditions come along.

Nexus A brief history of information Networks from the stone age to AI
Yuval Noah Harari
Genre/Category: Technology, History, Philosophy
Publication Date September 10, 2024
Publisher Random House

Professor Harari has written a must read book for all participants in AI, whether they are engineers or are ultimately users. His approach is one of historic perspective based on changes in information technology in civilization. He presents. cases where information intelligence went comparatively wrong or disastrous. I believe that ultimately, he is pro AI while giving a great number of caveats. More importantly he is suggesting workable solutions to the problems that AI may present. I also believe on balance AI will be a positive for society and it is to be hoped that the repercussions will be be significantly better than those following the Industrial Revolution e.g. colonialism and world war. I believe that his main point is that we can, via legislation, come up with solutions such as code embedded self correcting mechanisms rather than much after the fact as in the case of the Industrial Revolution.

Harari :“The algorithms should learn to doubt themselves, to signal uncertainty and to obey the precautionary principle. This is not impossible. Engineers are already making considerable headway encouraging AI to express self-doubt, ask for feedback and admit its”.
However, Harai again: “What would stop AI from being incorporated and recognized as legal persons with freedom of speech and then lobbying and making political donations to protect and expand?” Think about Citizens United.

This book could be easily called Scary Optimism. (or AI might be coming for your job.) Historically there is a great deal of fear, anxiety, and lack of accurate information about AI. Unfortunately, most of it is predicated on great science fiction movies like Terminator which was based on the idea of super self-programming AI computers gaining intelligence, human thought and overthrowing and enslaving humans. Harari “The use of this metric, however, is deeply confusing. It is like defining and evaluating airplanes to the metric bird level flight. AI isn't progressing towards human level intelligence; it is evolving into an entirely different type of intelligence.”
Harari: “Technology doesn't have to be a morality tale in which every golden apple contains the seeds of doom.”

Professor Harari is a philosopher and historian, who despite being an academic writes with jargon free clarity. He has written a prospective history of Artificial Intelligence by referencing historically significant information (intelligence?) breakthroughs. The advantage he has is that unlike the Industrial Revolution which even the progenitors were mostly not aware of we are absorbed by the rise of AI and feeding (training) it with our cat photos. Yes, and I would say food photos as well. One of my more famous t shirts (also on a coffee mug). on UZELESSTEESHIRTS.com states “If the product is free, (e.g. GOOGLE, Facebook, TikTok, etc.) you are the product” I am not kidding, those millions of cat photos and food we post on the internet in order to entertain ourselves, to say nothing of getting personal significance are “donated” by us to train AI. The salient fact is that none of the tech giants revealed this to us when we got free email etc., to say nothing of social significance, this total lack of transparency is not insignificant but may reveal the solution to gaining some measure of control over AI. Harari: “We get information from the tech giants, and we pay them with information” All things we post are scooped up by the AI algorithm to be fed back as search results. The clock may be ticking on free email, search, social connections, dancing babies, conspiracies, driving directions and dinner reservations. Information is power and we have given it to the algorithm. Maybe we should be paying for it in return for legislative controls which he refers to as self-correcting mechanisms. No one had any idea what the possible result of the Industrial Revolution would be: sweat shops, child labor, world war, colonialist conquest of other countries that were rich in natural resources: coal, iron, etc. needed for industrial production. Thus, there were no self-correcting mechanisms. However, because of ubiquitous education, personal computers, the internet and social media we can start to put together an approximation of the impact of AI. The Terminator sci fi version is almost universally negative like a Grimm Fairy Tale. A good metaphor for losing control of a creation is the Disney Fantasia animation about The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Goethe. The tech industry and its media vassals utilize fear and joy as propaganda to sell advertising. Harari: “Should we agree to get free e-mail services, social connections, and entertainment from the tech giants in exchange for giving them control of our most sensitive data? If the tech giants cannot square their fiduciary duty with their current business model, legislators could require them to switch to a more traditional business model of getting users to pay for our services with money rather than information. Alternatively, citizens might view some digital services so fundamental that they should be free for everybody. But we have a social model for that too, healthcare and education. Citizens could decide that it is the government's responsibility to provide basic digital services for free and finance them out of our taxes, just as many governments, not the USA, provide free basic health care and education services.”

Recently, I reread 1984 which was based on the belief that totalitarianism would be like the government of Hitler and Stalin. I suggest “libertarian” government may well be Google, META Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, Twitter X, Apple, Microsoft et al as a potentially privatized Corporate Communist Big Brother. A brain dead, soulless corporation that owns the means of communication.
Harari: “Technology doesn't have to be a morality tale in which every golden apple contains the seeds of doom.”
Who owns AI? (Hint, the same people whose blissful ignorance started and eventually owned the Industrial Revolution.)
Don’t get me started.

Nexus
By Yuval Noah Harari

This is a book about many things, almost too many to process. But overall it seems to be about evolution – change – and how humans, while progressing throughout history have also created most of the devastating forces threatening us and our world today and in the future.

Information – how it is created and transmitted – seems to be the crux of the matter. How do we know what is true and what is not, called disinformation? Does the surfeit of information all around us through language, both oral and written; media (radio, television, computers, cell phones); and ultimately through the prism of AI help us or hurt us in the future?

This book gives the reader much to think about, whether or not you agree with everything Mr. Harari posits. It is worth reading.

In Harari's classic style, this stellar book dives into how humans have progressed though technology. While this book is best enjoyed by those who have little knowledge of the subject, it's daunting page count overshadows its message.

I requested this book from NetGalley because I was a fan of Harari's previous book, Sapiens. I try to take a realty break from fiction every once in a while now that my stint as a business book reviewer is behind me... but this one was...tough. I mean that in the best way possible. Harari's research is impeccable and he asks some brutal questions; it's really a must read for anyone who wants to know how we got into this divided state, and also, possibly, how we can dig ourselves out of it. I wish it had been required reading for the entire country eight years ago. The lead up to our present information breakdown offers insight and some hope, but there are also some hard truths that just have to be faced, as in, when considering AI—we've created this monster, and we don't really know how to tame it. It's not all bad news, but I'm not going to lie, it's a lot. The thing is, Harari still crafts a fascinating historical perspective, and it's really necessary to understand that if we want to move forward, together.

Yuval Noah Harari is one of my top three favorite authors. I also love Bill Bryson and Walter Isaacson.

Therefore, I was thrilled that a few months ago, I got an advanced copy of Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, which launches today, September 10, 2024.

It's a 515-page book but has 11 chapters filled with headers, making it modular and readable.

I also reviewed his previous book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

I loved Nexus, although Homo Deus is still my favorite Harari book.

Nexus explores the evolution of information networks from prehistoric times to the present, focusing mainly on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on society.

Outline
There are 3 parts:

Part 1: Human Networks focuses on history and how information went from clay tablets to silicon.

Part 2: The Inorganic Network focuses on the internet age and the birth of AI. It discusses how computers differ from printing presses and how the information networks are relentless and fallible.

Part 3: Computer Politics focuses on how AI will enter every aspect of our lives, governments, and businesses. He discusses democracies, totalitarianism, and the Silicon Curtain (how China and the West have different internets and AIs).

Overview and Themes
In Nexus, Harari argues that human history has been profoundly shaped by our ability to create and share narratives, which he identifies as the foundation of our social structures.

He posits that information networks—from oral traditions to the internet—serve as the "glue" that holds societies together.

The book emphasizes the dual nature of information: while it can foster cooperation and understanding, it can also propagate falsehoods and manipulation, particularly in the age of AI.

Nexus is more urgent and personal than Harari's previous works. It tackles contemporary issues related to AI, warning about its potential to manipulate human behavior without direct control.

Harari connects historical developments, such as the rise of farming and cities, to the evolution of information networks.

Nexus mixes historical analysis and philosophical reflection with Harari's trademark ability to provoke thought about the implications of modern technology.

His exploration of how AI could reshape human existence is captivating and unsettling, prompting you to reconsider your relationship with technology.

One fascinating observation is that governments used to spend 80% of their budgets on the military. Today, they spend about 10% on the military and more on healthcare.

Critique
Harari makes the same error that many nonfiction books do: they spend 95% of the book complaining and 5% of the time discussing the solution.

Conclusion
Happily, Harari isn't bleak or hopeless. He isn't overly pessimistic about our future. He believes we're at a critical crossroads, akin to when Christian scholars decided what books would make it into the Bible. What we do today will have an impact forever.

Totalitarianism loves AI's ability to survey and process data to keep the population in check.

However, totalitarianism hates that AI is a black box that is unpredictable and hard to control. Totalitarianism may become dependent on AI to make wise decisions, and it may falter, especially if the AI doesn't do what's best for the totalitarian leader.

Harari believes that democracy will triumph over totalitarianism because democracy is self-correcting and open to criticism. It's constantly adjusting to the wisdom of the crowds, whereas totalitarianism is rigid.

Ultimately, he believes that strong, wise institutions will help us incorporate the best of AI while avoiding its follies and dangers.

Nexus contributes to the discourse on AI and its societal implications. While it may not achieve the same universal acclaim as Harari's earlier works, like Sapiens or Homo Deus, it offers a compelling examination of how information networks have evolved and the urgent questions they raise for the future.

Readers looking for a blend of history, philosophy, and contemporary relevance will find much to ponder in Harari's latest offering.

After my verdict, I have included some excerpts from the book so you can get a feel for what it covers.

VERDICT: 9 out of 10 stars.

Excerpts
To conclude, the new computer network will not necessarily be either bad or good. All we know for sure is that it will be alien and it will be fallible. We therefore need to build institutions that will be able to check not just familiar human weaknesses like greed and hatred but also radically alien errors. There is no technological solution to this problem. It is, rather, a political challenge. Do we have the political will to deal with it? Modern humanity has created two main types of political systems: large-scale democracy and large-scale totalitarianism.

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Another common but mistaken assumption is that creativity is unique to humans so it would be difficult to automate any job that requires creativity.

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third mistaken assumption is that computers couldn’t replace humans in jobs requiring emotional intelligence, from therapists to teachers.

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If it means the ability to correctly identify emotions and react to them in an optimal way, then computers may well outperform humans even in emotional intelligence. Emotions too are patterns.

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Actually, computers may outperform humans in recognizing human emotions, precisely because they have no emotions of their own. We yearn to be understood, but other humans often fail to understand how we feel, because they are too preoccupied with their own feelings. In contrast, computers will have an exquisitely fine-tuned understanding of how we feel, because they will learn to recognize the patterns of our feelings, while they have no distracting feelings of their own.

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Actually, computers may outperform humans in recognizing human emotions, precisely because they have no emotions of their own. We yearn to be understood, but other humans often fail to understand how we feel, because they are too preoccupied with their own feelings. In contrast, computers will have an exquisitely fine-tuned understanding of how we feel, because they will learn to recognize the patterns of our feelings, while they have no distracting feelings of their own. A 2023 study found that the ChatGPT chatbot, for example, outperforms the average human in the emotional awareness it displays toward specific scenarios.

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If three years of high unemployment could bring Hitler to power, what might never-ending turmoil in the job market do to democracy?

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The most important human skill for surviving the twenty-first century is likely to be flexibility, and democracies are more flexible than totalitarian regimes.

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The rise of unfathomable alien intelligence undermines democracy. If more and more decisions about people’s lives are made in a black box, so voters cannot understand and challenge them, democracy ceases to function.

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Power lies at the nexus where the information channels merge.

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For most of recorded history, the military was the number one item on the budget of every empire, sultanate, kingdom, and republic.

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For many people in the 2010s, the fact that the health-care budget was bigger than the military budget was unremarkable. But it was the result of a major change in human behavior, and one that would have sounded impossible to most previous generations.

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It places a heavy responsibility on all of us to make good choices. It implies that if human civilization is consumed by conflict, we cannot blame it on any law of nature or any alien technology.

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It places a heavy responsibility on all of us to make good choices. It implies that if human civilization is consumed by conflict, we cannot blame it on any law of nature or any alien technology. It also implies that if we make the effort, we can create a better world.

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It places a heavy responsibility on all of us to make good choices. It implies that if human civilization is consumed by conflict, we cannot blame it on any law of nature or any alien technology. It also implies that if we make the effort, we can create a better world. This isn’t naïveté; it’s realism.

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The invention of AI is potentially more momentous than the invention of the telegraph, the printing press, or even writing, because AI is the first tool that is capable of making decisions and generating ideas by itself.

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The good news is that if we eschew complacency and despair, we are capable of creating balanced information networks that will keep their own power in check. Doing so is not a matter of inventing another miracle technology or landing upon some brilliant idea that has somehow escaped all previous generations. Rather, to create wiser networks, we must abandon both the naive and the populist views of information, put aside our fantasies of infallibility, and commit ourselves to the hard and rather mundane work of building institutions with strong self-correcting mechanisms. That is perhaps the most important takeaway this book has to offer.

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This wisdom is much older than human history. It is elemental, the foundation of organic life. The first organisms weren’t created by some infallible genius or god. They emerged through an intricate process of trial and error. Over four billion years, ever more complex mechanisms of mutation and self-correction led to the evolution of trees, dinosaurs, jungles, and eventually humans. Now we have summoned an alien inorganic intelligence that could escape our control and put in danger not just our own species but countless other life-forms. The decisions we all make in the coming years will determine whether summoning this alien intelligence proves to be a terminal error or the beginning of a hopeful new chapter in the evolution of life.

I'm glad I read this book, but it was a bummer. AI is coming for us, people.
AI is different than all previous information technology because there is, potentially, no human in control of the ultimate decision-making. And AI is improving so quickly that we realistically cannot even imagine what it will be able to do in 10, 50, 200 years. And anyone who thinks AI will bring nothing but equality and world peace is naive. ("Naive" is Harari's favorite low-key insult.)
Harari isn't suggesting we banish all AI, but he wants us to slow down and really consider what control we might be giving up as we give more and more control to AI. For example, he suggests that we should immediately criminalize the use of bots that try to convince us that they are human (like we've banned counterfeit money). I'm all for this. Harari makes a good case that much of the harm done by AI on social media is done by posts coming from bots posing as humans.
I also feel like Harari is a great explainer. I have a much better understanding of what populism is and what the difference is between an autocrat and a totalitarian.
So here's what bugged me: Harari is SO anti-religion. He repetitively tells us that AI has the potential to become as bad as religion - people believing in an all-knowing being telling them what is true. And he thinks his readers must all agree with him. At one point he tells us that although we probably think the damage caused by the Nazi Party and the Soviet Communist Party are no different than the damage caused by Christian churches, there really are, believe it or not, differences between organized religion and totalitarian regimes. Uh, yeah. We're aware.
People have done terrible things in the name of religion. People (Stalin, Hitler, Chairman Mao) have done terrible things under other ideologies. People have fed the poor and raised orphans and served their neighbors in the name of religion too, but that is certainly never mentioned. OK - enough of that.
I spent a lot of time yelling at the screen as i read this, but I did get useful information and much to think about.

“The key question is, what would it mean for humans to live in the new computer-based network, perhaps as an increasingly powerless minority? How would the new network change our politics, our society, our economy, and our daily lives? How would it feel to be constantly monitored, guided, inspired, or sanctioned by billions of nonhuman entities? How would we have to change in order to adapt, survive, and hopefully even flourish in the startling new world?”

“But for tens of thousands of years, Sapiens built and maintained large networks by inventing and spreading fictions, fantasies, and mass delusions — about gods, about enchanted broomsticks, about AI, and about a great many other things. While each individual human is typically interested in knowing the truth about themselves and the world, large networks bind members and create order by relying on fictions and fantasies. That’s how we got, for example, to Nazism and Stalinism. These were exceptionally powerful networks, held together by exceptionally deluded ideas. As George Orwell famously put it, ignorance is strength.”

“What will happen to the course of history when computers play a larger and larger role in culture and begin producing stories, laws, and religions? Within a few years, AI could eat the whole of human culture —everything we have created over thousands of years — digest it, and begin to gush out a flood of new cultural artifacts.”

“Now we have summoned an alien inorganic intelligence that could escape our control and put in danger, not just our own species but countless other life-forms. The decisions we all make in the coming years will determine whether summoning the alien intelligence proves to be a terminal error or the beginning of a hopeful new chapter in the evolution of life.”

This book gave me a lot to think about, while simultaneously making me feel like there is no point in my thinking about AI. My input is not going to be requested. The future of AI will be in the hands of people (or maybe AI) who don’t care what I think, and who may not know what the hell they are doing. At least I learned something about the history of information networks and both the good and bad ways information has been used.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

This was my first Harari book, so I was excited to read this! I enjoyed the semi-chronological approach with examples from history. There were consequences to advances in technology both positive and negative that I hadn’t thought about before. The book is nonfiction, but a lot of it are Harari’s opinions and interpretations, so you have to take things with a grain of salt. But it was a great way to get intrigued by these arguments, and make you rethink what happened in the past, but also the future. It was a bit long in my opinion, I think the same points could have been made in fewer pages. The view of AI is quite pessimistic. I wonder if part of this is to try to compensate for the overwhelming acceptance of AI in the mainstream. There are many aspects that we as a society really need to reevaluate and be wary of, so the points are valid. Overall, it was a very intriguing book, but I would take this as a great starting point to further investigate these topics on my own. Thank you very much, NetGalley, for the advanced reader's copy!

This review was posted on GoodReads.com on October 23, 2024.

“Nexus,” by Yuval Noah Harari, is an enlightening and thought-provoking narrative about the development of, and dilemmas associated with, information networks. Harari includes examples of information networks throughout history, especially large-scale information networks of democratic and totalitarian societies, to highlight the significance and implications of the decisions these societies made regarding their networks.

Early in the book, Harari discusses what information is, including how the “naïve” and “populist” views of information are extreme and unrealistic. Harari also explains why information does not necessarily convey the truth, and how mythology (i.e., human-created stories) and bureaucracy have been central to gaining and retaining power over information networks.

Until now, all information networks have been human (organic) and have relied on human decision making and ideas. Today, the world is creating its first nonhuman (inorganic) information network – artificial intelligence – capable of making decisions and generating ideas that humans likely cannot. Harari contends that this poses a new set of concerns (e.g., AI-generated false information, potential unintended catastrophes) and that human choices (e.g., societal cooperation, self-correcting mechanisms) made concerning this AI information network may be the most important in human history.

“Nexus” is an excellent and highly-recommended read—one that should be read and discussed widely, given the vital role the AI information network will play in our lives going forward.

[My special thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an advance reading copy of this book!]

An interesting look at how information has been shared and spread throughout time. It is a pretty interesting look at society and how news is shared at various points in history. Some fairly interesting stuff, but also dragged a bit.

Always a great time reading Yuval, and it is words and learnings that are necessary at this time! Thank you!

A well-researched and highly readable assessment of the development and change in information networks and what it might mean for our future with AI.

Once again, Yuval Noah Harari gives a "Big History" of humanity, this time focusing on information theory. The second half functions as a policy brief on AI, and it ain't pretty.

A thoughts provoking story with a lot of information explaining how our lives are affected by all the information gathered about us, how decisions are essentially made for us, and why this matters. Wish there were solutions though. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Yuval Noah Harari's newest non-fiction work, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, attempts to tackle the origins of information, its reception, and its appearance throughout various points in history such as the Qin dynasty, the Church, Pokémon Go, and social media. While Harari’s work is ambitious in scope, the book feels disorganized and loses focus. The book’s central aim is more on different aspects of information and a brief discussion of AI appears near the end of the work.