Nexus: The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller from the author of Sapiens Hardcover – 10 Sept. 2024

It took me 4 days to read this book. Captivating. The way Yuval has written this is brilliant. He has communicated the essence of AI and the impact it can potentially have, in a very succinct way. It certainly has me thinking about how I live my life and how I want technology, particularly AI, to influence it. I have loved reading all of his books. Can’t wait for more.

This has to be one of the most important books of our time. Harari has to be right when he says that we are 'potentially [at] the end of human history'. History will go on but if the big decisions are made by AI then we are at the end of human history when humans called the shots. A medievalist who studied the causes of wars, Harari lays out his analysis of how society works — with a pendulum swaying between the two great forces of order and truth. Having just written a book myself on how Ireland away from rigid Church and State control through a liberalised education to being able to accept more truth, I had a strong example on which to test this theory, and the theory worked from all the angles I could examine it from. We are at a potential turning point now in which we could hand over too much power to AI without even realising it, he suggests. There are preventative solutions — including setting up mechanisms to retain control of complex algorithms — but we need to wake up to these dangers now.

This book looks at ideas around what facts are, how we interpret them, and what we might expect from a future where we’ve trained apps, and artificial intelligence on “facts”, and what might happen, if we let them run unchecked.The book is all rather depressing. In a way, it states the obvious (it’s interpretation that’s important, and history shows humanity kinda sucks at that), but points out that we might find it hard to “come together “ to manage something (AI) that could fundamentally affect how life develops.The most depressing part sees Harari argue that the world is dividing into democracies and autocratic/authoritarian/totalitarian countries, and that the totalitarian countries will find AI really useful, if they remain at least a little trusting, remember that it’s humans that should take the final decisions.Communism and religions (and particularly the Catholic Church) come in for a lot of critical consideration. The discussion of how the bible came to be was really interesting. We learn a lot about who got to contribute to the book, but it all went pear-shaped when it comes to its contents, and interpretation (those pesky humans again).One thing I did notice is that once the issues with the Old Testament are discussed, Judaism/Israel, and its position in the Middle East isn’t discussed. Catholics doing their thing is understandably discussed. The Protestant reconsideration of Catholic doctrine was considered. How the Buddhist violence against Muslims happened in Rohingya (Myanmar) is really well explained. But… a similar consideration of the state of Israel (and Judaism and Islam’s interpretation of holy books, and recent history) could have occurred, and would have been interesting, but it was breezed over with a quick discussion of the Temple Mount. It might be that there’s a whole book in the same vein there, but I felt it was noticeable by its absence. That or it didn’t fit with the central thesis that AI needs managing.So all in all, it an interesting book, just a little depressing in places.

Although subtitled ‘A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, this weighty tome is actually surprisingly comprehensive. With 67 pages of Bibliography and an Index of 15 pages, the book is a veritable compendium of information, scholarly exploration, and informed opinion on the ways in which human societies have communicated over the period of their descent from the trees to modern times.I’ve learned a great deal of history from this amazing work. Some of those things I thought I knew have been thrown into turmoil and then calmly explained in terms that have convinced me I was often wrongly informed. Alternatively, other aspects of my education, mostly gained through wide reading, have been confirmed as accurate, which is some relief. The amount of research involved in producing this book is astounding. And the breadth of knowledge, amalgamated and sorted into cohesive chunks, makes the reader question many opinions and commonly held beliefs, forming new views and surgically excising old ones.Presented in three parts, Human Networks, The Inorganic Network, and Computer Politics, followed by an Epilogue that explains how the author approached the subject and garnered expert help from many sources to supplement his already deep historical familiarity, the book covers more or less everything we need to consider in regard to the way we communicate.The book is timely for a number of reasons that shouldn’t need clarification, but which will for many people. For a start, we are fast approaching the existential threat of uncontrollable climate change. Our political world is also in danger of falling prey to yet more populist dictators who have no concern for anyone but themselves and their own glorification. And technicians are experimenting dangerously with an increasingly threatening invention with the misleading label ‘Artificial Intelligence’.Science Fiction writers (including me) have written copious warnings about this new development. Human beings have a history of inventing strangely self-destructive things that threaten our continued existence. The nuclear bomb and it’s supposedly benign offspring, nuclear power, biological warfare, and the capitalist system of growth all come to mind most easily. It is as if we’re content to allow the development of these threats without ever stopping to question the wisdom of such so-called advances. Perhaps it’s time to take a pause for breath in our dash toward potential suicide and just ask ourselves a very simple question: ‘What are the real potential consequences of this development?’Harari remains remarkably neutral in his analysis of the problems we are creating for our future. He approaches the issues from an academic, unemotional, point of view. But there lurks in the background the knowledge of the underlying threat to our very existence. The computing world, with its vested interest in creating what are commonly misnamed ‘advances’, is mostly silent on the issue of threat when it comes to AI. They tell us it’s implausible that it will become self-aware and therefore it’s unlikely to use its apparently infallible logic to determine that we’re a wasteful and destructive species the world would be better without.But there are other aspects to AI, especially as it applies to the multitude of algorithms that now rule much of our online and ordinary daily lives. Applying AI to these ubiquitous processes has every likelihood of resulting in significant conflict between individuals, groups, and nations. In fact, this process has already begun. Harari explains this in much more convincing and persuasive terms than I can in this short review. If you read the book for no other purpose than to understand the implications of AI for our future as a species, please, at least read it for that reason. I’ve discovered it also to be a resource for several future pieces of writing. But, read it now, because tomorrow it may be too late.