Nexus
A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
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4.4 • 244 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world.
“Strikingly original . . . A historian whose arguments operate on the scale of millennia has managed to capture the zeitgeist perfectly.”—The Economist
“This deeply important book comes at a critical time as we all think through the implications of AI and automated content production. . . . Masterful and provocative.”—Mustafa Suleyman, author of The Coming Wave
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Harari (Homo Deus) offers an ambitious but muddled meditation on the past and future of information technology. Positing all human history as a history of information—and defining information as "something that creates new realities"—Harari ends up telling a cautionary tale about the power of stories. He argues that prehistoric humans' harnessing of information technologies led to the emergence of a new " of reality"—the realm of shared belief—and that manipulations of this realm via new information technologies account for both advancements in human civilization and sweeping social ills (for example, the ancient invention of the written document led to bureaucracy, while the 20th century's overabundance of the written document enabled totalitarianism). Harari sees the rise of artificial intelligence as an inflection point, one that leads either to unprecedented opportunity or to humanity's obsolescence. Harari's historical arguments are vague and prone to circular logic, and though his discussion of AI is more focused, he confusingly levels sharp critiques of tech gurus' utopian claims (raising salient points about the dangerous role algorithms have already begun playing in policing, for example) while still taking their dystopian ones at face value (prognosticating on a rise-of-the-machines scenario in which "AI will just grab power to itself"). Readers who enjoy Harari as a kind of freewheeling conversation partner will find food for thought here. But take this with a heaping dose of salt.
Customer Reviews
Just a few observations
I just finished this book and must say it is worth the time. Each of the authors works has been an education. The AI subject continues to get attention and it is largely misrepresented. A tool to do good or a tool to do bad is the basic question. I am biased towards the opportunity for good.
I want to thank the author for his insight and in helping a reader (like me) to be a little better informed.
Not a whole lot of systematically presented scientific facts
The subject of the book is challenging, I think it is hard to describe the evolution of information networks in a systematic manner. I got an impression that the author mostly shares examples that he thought were relevant to the subject (interaction between information and society etc.). Surprised he didn’t mention Facebook censoring content during covid lockdowns under the pressure from Biden administration.
The Greatest Enemy of Multicellular Life
Cancer, not artificial intelligence.