By Yuval Noah Harari

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In his previous best-seller, Sapiens, he explored the past. Now Yuval Noah Harari explores 21 pressing issues that will define our future, including whether or not computers and robots change the meaning of being human.

We've got a lot to get through, so we are going to jump right into it.

Part 1- The Technological Challenge

1. Disillusionment

Our world has many hurdles to overcome and the best way to do so is to give people more liberty. The internet has changed the world more than anything else and our government systems are still struggling to understand it and use it effectively. Soon, AI will take over the political process. The revolution in biotech and infotech will enable us to control the world and manufacture life, but we still unaware of the political implications. Nobody knows what the consequences will be. AI will eventually turn politicians powerless and the fight will shift from struggling against exploitation to struggling against irrelevance.

Our liberal system may not be perfect but we have no other alternatives, so it will stick. But our biggest problems right now are ecological collapse and technological disruption, and liberalism can’t help with those. Right now, humankind is angry and disillusioned about the current state of the world. The first step is to switch from panic mode to bewilderment and to explore the new possibilities we face and how we can proceed.

2. Work

It is generally agreed that machine learning and robotics will change nearly every line of work, although we’re not exactly sure how long it will take or how it will change the job market.

AI can outperform humans in “uniquely human skills” and uniquely non-human abilities – connectivity and updatability. Computers can easily integrate into a single network, thus they will always be stronger than the abilities of a human individual. Thus, automation will bring immense benefits.

In terms of job security, AI will take the jobs of those with low levels of expertise, but may create more jobs for those with high levels of expertise. Potential solutions include prevention of job loss, creation of new jobs, and how to respond if job losses significantly outstrip job creation. Universal basic support could make job loss irrelevant, as long as we have strong communities and meaningful pursuits.

3. Liberty

Referendums and elections are more about human feelings than about rationality, both for the voters and for the officials. Scientific insights on the brain and body suggest that our feelings are biochemical mechanisms that calculate probabilities of survival and reproduction. Feelings are based on calculation. Soon, we will have an algorithm for everything – what to study, where to work, and whom to marry. Since humans typically make mistakes, it would be logical to trust the algorithm, just as humans trust the Google algorithm to give us the answers to our questions.

AI is scary because they will always obey their masters – and there is no way for us to ensure that their masters are benign. As algorithms get better, authoritarian governments could gain absolute control over their citizens and resistance would be utterly impossible. In the meantime, humans are relying on AI to help with their decisions which can lead to serious discrimination. Today, banks are already using algorithms to analyse data and make decisions about us. Digital dictatorships threaten our liberty and equality and could make most people irrelevant.

4. Equality

Globalisation has benefited large parts of the world but it has also increased inequalities between and within societies. Soon, the rich may be able to upgrade physical and cognitive abilities which would separate humankind into a small class of super-humans and a massive underclass of useless Homo sapiens. It’s possible that different human groups will have completely different futures.

To prevent the concentration of all wealth and power, the key is to regulate the ownership of data. It is crucial to get our lawyers, politicians, philosophers and even poets to focus on this problem as it may be the most important political question of our era.

Part 2 – The Political Challenge

5. Community

Humans need community to flourish. Over the past two centuries, intimate communities have been disintegrating. Facebook is a great place to start in terms of community building, but in order for it to truly make a difference it will have to transcend into the offline world too. Humans are incapable of intimately knowing more than 150 individuals so it is risky for us to invest too much time and energy in online relationships because that means neglecting offline relationships.

6. Civilization

Humans have always been divided into diverse civilizations with incompatible world views. Human tribes tend to come together over time to become larger and larger groups. This process has taken two distinct forms: establishing links between distinct groups and homogenising practices across groups.

Our planet is divided into sovereign states that generally agree on the same diplomatic protocols and international laws. The Olympic games are an impressive example of global agreement. People still have different religions and national identities, but when it comes to the practical stuff, almost all of us belong to the same civilization.

7. Nationalism

Nationalism is not inherent, but there is nothing wrong it. The problem starts when patriotism becomes ultranationalism – the belief that one nation is supreme. This leads to violent conflict, and with nuclear weapons, the stakes of war are much higher.

Climate change is an alarming issue, but for any serious effectiveness, changes must be made on a global level. In the context of climate change, nationalist isolationism is probably even more dangerous than nuclear war. In order to make wise choices about the future, we must look beyond the nationalist viewpoint and take a global or even cosmic perspective.

8. Religion

To understand the role of traditional religions in the world of the twenty-first century, we need to distinguish between three types of problems:

Technical problems – ie, how should farmers in arid countries deal with severe droughts caused by global warming?

Policy problems – ie, what measures should governments adopt to prevent global warming in the first place?

Identity problems – ie, should I even care about the problems of farmers on the other side of the world, or should I only care about problems of my own tribe and country?

Traditional religions are largely irrelevant to technical and policy problems, but they are extremely relevant to identity problems. However, in most cases they are a major part of the problem rather than a potential solution.

9. Immigration

To clarify matters, Harari defines immigration as a deal with three basic conditions or terms.

1 . The host country allows immigrants in. Pro-immigrationists think that countries have a moral duty to accept those who seek a better future. Anti- immigrationists say that you are never obliged to let people in.

2 .  In return, the immigrants must embrace at least the norms and values of the host country even if that means giving up some of their traditional norms and values. Pro- immigrationists say that having a wide spectrum of opinions, habits and values makes a nation vibrant and strong. Anti- immigrationists argue that immigrants are often the intolerant ones.

3 .  If they assimilate to a sufficient degree over time they become equal and full members of the host country. They become us. Pro- immigrationists demand a speedy acceptance, whereas anti- immigrationists want a longer probation period.

Part 3 – Despair and Hope

10. Terrorism

Terrorists kill very few people but nevertheless managed to terrify billions and shake huge political structures. Air pollution and diabetes kill far more people than terrorist attacks, yet we fear terrorism far more. Terrorists cause damage by creating a theatrical spectacle that they hope will provoke the enemy and cause them to overreact. In order to assuage these fears, the state must respond to the theater of terror with its own theatre of security.

A successful counterterrorism strategy is to focus on clandestine actions against the terrorist networks, keep things in perspective to avoid hysteria, and stop ourselves from overacting to our own fears. If we react in a balanced way, terrorism will fail.

11. War

The last few decades have been the most peaceful era in human history. Wars are no longer as economically sensible as they used to be (when winning a war also meant a great deal of profit) so waging war doesn’t make much sense anymore. But humans are stupid so we cannot assume that war is impossible. One potential remedy for human stupidity is humility – seeing our true place in the world.

12. Humility

Most people believe they are the centre of the world, and that their religion is too. Many religions praise the value of humility but then imagine themselves to be the most important thing in the universe. All humans would benefit from taking humility more seriously.

13. God

Many people think of God as a mysterious lawgiver who can explain the deepest riddles of the cosmos. We turn to God to answer all of the questions that we cannot and we turn to holy books to learn what God wants. However, to the best of our scientific knowledge, all of these sacred texts were written by Homo sapiens.

God is not essential to morality, as sometimes the religions that inspire love and compassion are the same ones that inspire hate and bigotry. Morality means ‘reducing suffering.’ Therefore, in order to act morally, you do not necessarily need a god. Instead, you need to understand suffering.

14. Secularism

Secularism can be defined as a coherent code of values rather than by opposition to a certain religion. The most important secular commitment is to the truth, which is based on observation and evidence rather than on mere faith. The other chief commitment is compassion. Secular people act to reduce the suffering in the world, so they cherish scientific truth in order to know how.

Part 4 – Truth

15. Ignorance

Individual humans know embarrassingly little about the world, and as time goes on, they have come to know less and less. We rely on the expertise of others for almost all of our needs. We think we know a lot because we treat knowledge in the minds of others as if it were our own. However, people fail to realise how ignorant they are because they lock themselves inside echo chambers of like-minded friends.

Groupthink and individual ignorance can be extremely dangerous. If you really want truth, you must escape the black hole of power and waste a lot of time experimenting with unproductive paths, dead ends and doubts.

16. Justice

Justice demands a set of abstract values and an understanding of concrete cause-and-effect relations. In our modern global world, it is difficult to comprehend relationships between millions of people across entire continents. Most of the injustices in the contemporary world result from large-scale structural biases rather than from individual prejudices. Most of us cannot understand the major moral problems of the world, thus it is hard to find justice.

17. Post- Truth

Humans have always lived in the age of post-truth. Homo sapiens conquered the planet because of the unique ability to create and spread fictions. As long as everybody believes the same fictions, we all obey the same laws and can thereby cooperate effectively.

Branding often includes telling the same fictional story again and again until people believe that it’s true. If you want power, at some point you will have to spread fictions. If you want truth, at some point you will have to renounce power. Humans prefer power to truth.

18. Science Fiction

In the early twenty-first century, perhaps the most important artistic genre is science fiction because people turn to movies and TV shows to understand the most important technological, social and economic developments of our time. This means that science fiction needs to be more responsible in the way it depicts reality.

Since your brain and your “self” are part of the matrix, to escape the matrix you must escape your self. This might become a necessary survival skill in the twenty-first century.

Part 5 - Resilience

19. Education

Today it is more difficult than ever to know what to teach the youth because we have no idea what the future will look like. Much of what kids learn today will likely be irrelevant by 2050. Currently, schools try to cram information into kids’ brains. But today, it’s easy to access information, and kids need the ability to make sense of information, to tell the difference between what is important and unimportant, and to combine many bits of information into a broad picture of the world.

Since we don’t know what the world and the job market will look like in the future, we don’t know what skills people will need. Instead, schools should focus on general-purpose life skills such as how to deal with change, learn new things and preserve your mental balance in unfamiliar situations.

20. Meaning

When we look for the meaning of life, we want a story that will explain what reality is all about and what my particular role is in the cosmic drama. To give meaning to life, a story needs to satisfy two conditions – it must give me some role to play and it needs to extend beyond my horizons. It must provide me with an identity and give meaning to my life by embedding me within something bigger than myself.

This story does not need to be true. A story can be pure fiction yet provide me with an identity and make me feel that my life has meaning.

In order to understand ourselves, a crucial step is to acknowledge that the “self” is a fictional story that the intricate mechanisms of our mind constantly manufacture, update and rewrite. The storyteller in my mind explains who I am, where I come from, where I am heading and what is happening to me right now.

21. Meditation

Suffering is not an objective condition in the outside world. It is a mental reaction generated by my own mind. Learning to control my mind is the best way to stop suffering.

Meditation is not an escape from reality. It is getting in touch with reality. Self-observation is hard, and as time goes on, humans create more and more complex stories about themselves, which makes it increasingly difficult to know who we really are. If we want to make the effort, we can still investigate who we are. And we need to do it now.