“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.

Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari totally blew my mind! Harari dives into all these wild ideas about AI, biotech, and the future of humanity, and while some of it felt a little out there, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It made me pause and really reflect on where we're headed—super thought-provoking and honestly a bit scary, but in a good way. Definitely recommend if you're into big ideas and want a book that sticks with you. Rating: 4 stars.

Yuval Noah Harari’s Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI is an incredibly interesting and insightful book that delves into the ways humans have communicated throughout history and how information networks have influenced culture and history. He also discusses the future of these information networks and the role and potential implications of AI on humanity. I enjoyed this book very much. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for my honest review.

The author posits that there are two views of understanding information, one is that information leads to truth which leads to wisdom and power and the more information freely exchanged the better, another is that information is power and must be controlled as a means to an end. After this he discusses the history of human information networks and how they have developed and been used to discover truths and create order from fireside stories to the internet and how mythology and bureaucracy have played integral parts in this development. Next he goes into the new information network or AI and how it is alien to what has come before in its capabilities. Finally he discusses the interaction between human information networks and artificial ones with an emphasis on how dangerous AI is and what we need to do to control it. There is a lot of information here and it makes you think about the information networks all around us, how these networks have been used in the past and can be used in the future. Compared to his other works this one has a narrower scope yet feels less researched and polished coming across as more angry and pessimistic about humanity but in spite of this I enjoyed the writing style and the interesting historical examples used throughout this book. I would rate this book 3.5 stars.

Like all other books by Yuval Noah Harari, this was informative, insightful and deliberately written to invoke thought and reflection. Truly enjoyed it.

Always thought provoking

My spouse and I both really like the work of this author. He tends to read the books first, but he cannot read them without sharing what he is reading with me and many of our friends. By the time I read the books, it feels like I am re-reading.

This is no exception. There is some really interesting stuff about AI. I highly recommend you read this (and his other books) for yourself.

Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI by Yuval Noah Harari provides a broad view of how information systems have evolved and influenced society across time. Harari emphasizes the architecture of communication networks—ranging from early oral traditions to today's AI-driven digital systems—and how the flow of data has impacted decision-making, governance, and power dynamics.

The book explores the historical development of information control mechanisms, drawing parallels between ancient systems like religious manuscripts and modern tools such as algorithms and AI-based systems that manage data in real-time. The author argues that information networks have been necessary for the rise of complex societies facilitating innovation and controls.

Harari's reflections on AI are very relevant and at times thought provoking, though some might find his thoughts more theoretical than based on experience. He warns about the disruptive potential of AI-derived information networks, suggesting that left unchecked data flows could lead to risks such as misinformation and loss of privacy. While this perspective offers a critical view of the future, I would suggest that it is missing many details on the technical specifics of AI systems and their real-world safeguards.

The author's summarization of macro-trends in information network development related to AI are very repetitive and at times feels like a way to make the book longer without really adding anything to the discussion.

Given the above, Nexus remains an acceptable reference on how data systems have historically influenced human behavior and governance, providing food for thought on future risks tied to evolving AI. Harari's work also needs to be looked at as a comprehensive point-in-time reference given how quickly the world of AI is evolving!

Another good book from the author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world. This is really groundbreraking, you should read it.

This book explores how the flow of information throughout history has shaped our societies, leading us to the rise of AI and the brink of ecological collapse. From the Stone Age to the age of misinformation, the author analyzes the complex relationship between information, truth, and power, urging us to confront the critical choices we face in a world increasingly dominated by non-human intelligence.

At times reassuring, at times terrifying, this book helps provide a clear understanding of the challenges faced by humanity at this moment in history. The brilliant, cogent analysis is accessible to a lay audience. It’s the kind of book I’d normally binge my way through, but it’s full of hard truths, and I needed frequent breaks. Nevertheless, it’s a must-read that shows us the path forward.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

I loved Sapiens, so I was very excited to read Nexus. However, I found it pretty disappointing. After reading it, I am honestly not sure if Yuval Noah Harari knows very much about artificial intelligence. I found the historical parts somewhat interesting, but so much of this book seemed to be based on speculation and confusing leaps in logic. I wasn’t even sure if I could make myself finish it at times, though I ended up doing so. Overall, I found this book to be very disappointing.

Who can forget Harari’s Sapiens bursting on our consciousness with its virtuoso bluntness about humanity as an myth-making species, our ability to create complex systems held together by ethereal narrative threads? Nothing escaped Harari’s scrutiny and certainly nothing was sacred: Sapiens questioned our dearly held illusions; no matter how essential to our sense of identity, it brought them into the creative human capacity. And it is from this point Harari picks up the narrative thread, a more compassionate, but more urgent voice Harari conveys in Nexus, looking at the technological phenomenon of AI and the narrative it weaves, self-contained, self-generated, devoid of human intervention. Harari asks: this narrative thread, will it save us from the Minotaur, or devour us?

To set us up further, the publisher’s blurb:

For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite all our discoveries, inventions, and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing headlong into the age of AI—a new information network that threatens to annihilate us. For all that we have accomplished, why are we so self-destructive?

Nexus looks through the long lens of human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world. Taking us from the Stone Age, through the canonization of the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism, and the resurgence of populism today, Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He explores how different societies and political systems throughout history have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill. And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence.

Information is not the raw material of truth; neither is it a mere weapon. Nexus explores the hopeful middle ground between these extremes, and in doing so, rediscovers our shared humanity.

Harari opens with the same question Western philosophy has tried to answer for thousands of years: what makes a good life and how can we attain it? But he’s not interested in didactically answering us; instead, this is his critique of what is our definition as “sapiens”, “the wise human”…and yet, “wise” is not what we are. We’re smart and yet, no matter how smart, the wisdom of the good life eludes us. Harari is more interested in thinking about what makes us self-destructive. But he’s also not prescriptive, at least only loosely. While Harari is a humanist, he defines the essential human activity not as individualism, but as our ability to “cooperate”. This is what makes for human complexity, not that we can act alone and for ourselves as individuals, but in our ability for complex, extensive collectivity. This, Harari suggests, is both our gift and Achilles’ heel.

This “gift” has led us to develop vast information technologies, says Harari, because “information” is a source of our complexity, but it is not, as the technologies we’ve built suggest, an inherent “good”, that is, says Harari, a good that cannot lead us to truth. To wisdom. Nope, says Harari, our excess of information leads only to confusion and feelings of helplessness. AI compounds the problem a hundredfold; more importantly, it leaves us with a creation threatening our agency. Because AI, asserts Harari, is the technology that can act independent of human control and intervention; algorithmic domination can act outside of the human narrative; it can make its own narrative; because it is pure “logos”, it can act in a madness of pure logic (think that old paperclip production scenario). Potentially. Possibly. Unless we do something about it.

Harari isn’t a determinist, but he doesn’t hold much for our ability to act wisely. We are smart, but not wise, foolish, but still capable of acting “rightly” for the benefit of ourselves and others. Our Achilles’ heel is also our gift: our narrative-making ability to create fictions to live by sometimes results in myths without the ability to “self-correct”, which Harari defines as the ability to admit and correct mistakes. Harari identifies institutions such as the Catholic Church as lacking in self-correction and science as one who does. Our chances of surviving and thriving lies in exercising this self-correcting capacity. Politically, democracy is self-correcting; dictatorship is not. Democracy is not perfect, but totalitarianism is worse.

AI-dominance is doom. Our survival depends, says Harari, on our ability not just to think, not just to act, but to do so by taking others’ perspectives into consideration and by virtue of human consciousness, our ability to experience “subjective feelings like pain, pleasure, love, and hate”. The key is exchange, not solipsism, which Harari calls “conversation”. Algorithms may be able to think and act, but can they feel? It is this consciousness, our sophisticated subjectivity that may hold us in better stead than our big ole brains. Harari even suggests these are the skills we should cultivate in the young, which seems like our Western educational project needs to change. Algorithms are not a viable partner of conversation, says Harari, for the human project, but it’s adversary.

Harari is a humanist. He wants to warn us and maybe even scare us to take on our agency: while we still can. Exercising our free will means taking on the responsibility of putting controls on AI. It’s as simple and difficult as that. This connects to Harari’s definition of history not as the study of the past, but of change. And change can be for the better; cynicism, like Orwell’s donkey, Benjamin, in Animal Farm, means never committing, never risking, but also never making things better.

Harari’s Nexus is a page-turner: driven by clear-eyed urgency and written with a voice that seeks to speak directly to the reader. It doesn’t possess Sapiens’ virtuosity, but it exercises its consciousness to seek our betterment, a better world, a more human, more compassionate, caring one. Reading a book of such complexity as the new school year launched may not have been the wisest choice, but it actually helped me rethink what it means to be a teacher, what our priorities should be, and how we can bring Harari’s message of exercising our freedom via the heart, of conversation as the key to collective action for our betterment, to the classroom. It’s good I started the year with Orwell’s Animal Farm. If you haven’t read Sapiens, though it’s Harari’s most original book, that’s all right, but you must read Nexus.

Yuval Noah Harari’s Nexus is published by Random House. It released on September 10th. I received an e-galley from Random House, via Netgalley. The above is my honest and Generative-AI-free expression.

In his book, Nexus, Yuval Noah Harari examines the implications of AI through a historical perspective.

He first discusses the fundamentals of what information is, as well as the human networks that have historically been used to gather and disseminate (or suppress) it. Next, he looks at the impact of computers on information, and finally, AI’s use within democratic and autocratic forms of government. I particularly found interesting his treatment of how AI may impact (for good or ill) both democratic and totalitarian states, and the concept of a “silicon curtain”.

A good read for those who are interested in how AI is shaping our present and future.