Introduction
The book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow is authored by Yuval Noah Harari, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Harari incorporates the current abilities, achievements as well as attempts of innovation to paint a picture of future mankind. Hence, it is a brief history of tomorrow focusing on the present and the future of humankind. The book focuses on philosophical matters such as humanism, individualism, trans-humanism, and mortality. Such philosophical issues are based on the abilities that human beings have acquired during their existence and through evolution. The Homo Deus, among other predecessors, such as the Homo Sapiens, is based on the dominant species of the world: humans. Harari is highly pessimistic about the future of humanity based on principles governing society and the changes it will undergo in the 21st century, which will bring major negative consequences on the lives of future generations. Harari foresees the emergence of an immortal human with the help of artificial intelligence, innovations of data directing human lives, and human with Godlike powers that will reduce masses to spectators.
Discussion
Up to the 20th century, human society was shaped by principles based on religion, among other earthly goals. Religious roles and earthly goals were all focused on meeting basic human needs of a good life, which are; happiness, health, and control of the environment. Harari’s point of view is that humanity is striving to attain the bliss of immortality and divinity and “enjoy everlasting bliss in paradise” (Harari, 2018, p. 39). With the expected immortality, humans will depend on implementations of artificial intelligence that provide humans with very long lives. However, when humanity achieves bliss, immortality, and divinity, what other purpose would they have (Harari, 2016, p. 31)? Harari is pessimistic about the outcome of human evolution to immortality. Today, war and violence are at their historical lows. Humankind has been working towards engaging in peaceful interactions with one another, which is a clear indication that war and violence are declining. The immortality of humans is achievable by eliminating death and disease. Harari foresees future scientific innovations introducing human life directed by Artificial Intelligence and humans will live very long, raising ethical and moral questions rather than benefiting humans, which is a pessimistic view.
Additionally, scientific and technological advancements are solving numerous human issues in terms of diseases and hunger, with the hope that someday they will be history. Bliss, immortality, and divinity are great achievements for any humankind, but Harari sees them as bad news to the future of humankind. The future holds a small number of elites working on upgrading themselves through scientific innovations to develop godlike species with selfish earthly goals. In other words, Harari’s pessimism focuses on the small number of elites that will have little consideration for the human masses and consider them superfluous (Harari, 2016, p. 272). So far, new technology has increased the application of Artificial Intelligence, and the elites are working towards creating better innovations that understand humanity better than themselves. Harari foresees the development of super-intelligent or godlike species that will be super-sufficient and view humans as unnecessary. Evolution developing inequality is a major argument of Harari in Homo Deus since data will be directing human lives (Harari, 2016, p. 391). Eventually, dataism is taking control of the social aspect of humanity through algorithms interrogations programmed by commercial organizations; Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
In the future, humanity’s achievements of bliss, immortality, and divinity will see a small number of people leap ahead and masses left behind as innovations come up. There is some truth in his argument since, in the 21st century, innovations do not automatically benefit everyone. For instance, the private sector is only beneficial to powerful and rich people, with little fulfillment of the needs of poor people (Harari, 2016, p. 264). However, scientific innovations work towards closing the gap between the poor and the rich by developing innovations that cater to everyone. Such innovations exist in the present and are highly beneficial to people in general. In the past, life-saving vaccines took many years for the rich world to develop and distribute to the poor. However, modern-day pharmaceutical companies are using technology to reduce the lag time for distributing vaccinations around the globe, while governments and different foundations are providing life-saving vaccines to the global population at minimal or no cost to people. Harari does not pick the positive side of global innovations, although inequality is inevitable in the 21st century.
Moreover, Harari argues that the age of data is sweeping away the centuries of decisions and doings of human beings and eventually will render them irrelevant. He summarizes modernity as ‘giving up meaning to embrace power’ (Harari, 2016, p. 42). Investment in artificial intelligence is like replacing organic algorithms with non-organic algorithms, which will render centuries of human innovation meaningless (Harari, 2016, p. 131). Harari bases his argument on IT-AI rather than biology, history, and sociology, whereby he views organisms, including Homo sapiens, as algorithms. It indicates that life is just a simple data-processing continuum. Presently, the human lifespan is very short, full of brutish and nasty occurrences, and Harris decides to paint a doomed picture of its future. Although innovations have contributed to more misery for humankind, such as nuclear weapons and the destruction of climate and environment, he does not focus on positive attributions brought about by evolution. Additionally, algorithm interrogations and manipulation of big data sets are already implemented by commercial motives and organizations such as Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
Conclusion
The book Homo Deus is compelling to readers. However, he included numerous sensationalist arguments from the upcoming godlike power in humans that will wipe out generations, despite the human effort of innovation in science and technology for a better life. The arguments of the book Homo Deus draw from science, philosophy, and history, while his proposition is keenly developed. The book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow is pessimistic and nihilistic of the human future brought about by evolution and scientific innovations. The major arguments indicating Harari’s pessimism are based on the emergent of godlike power, dataism, and human immortality. Godlike power indicates increased manipulation of data sets to control human life. Such powers already exist in Silicon Valley, which is highly invested in AI in robotics and reducing the rest of humanity to spectators. Secondly, the advancement of dataism, whereby future human existence will be based on algorithm manipulations. Finally, the emergence of immortal humans immune to famine, plague, and war. Harari’s view on humans is that they are selected machines with the ability to propagate genetic material and neuronal networks efficiently or simply data processing machines.
References
Harari, Y. N. (2016). Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow. Random House.