Homo Deus
Book Author | |
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Published | January 1, 2015 |
Pages | 450 |
Greek Publisher | Αλεξάνδρεια |
A Brief History of Tomorrow
What’s it about?
Homo Deus (2015) explains how we came to be the planet’s dominant species and uncovers a prediction for the future of humanity. It examines our present humanist state, the notion of individual choice and how we persist in worshipping the individual. It also reveals how science and technology will eventually make humans subservient to computer algorithms.
About the author
Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli historian and a tenured professor at the Department of History of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is also the author of the best-selling book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.
Basic Key Ideas
The advent of humans and humanity’s subsequent rule over earth began with Homo sapiens’ inventive talent, consciousness and thought. Religion and humanist philosophy have done their bit to bring this reign into being, placing humans at the center of creation and thought.
Indeed, with the rapid advancement of science and technology, computers and artificial intelligence, it seems little can stop us. But might we be digging our own graves?
These blinks explain the rise of humans and the doctrine of human superiority. You’ll see what made us dominate this planet and why we think we are special. But you’ll also peer ahead and see what threatens our crown – and could commence the fall of humankind.
You’ll also learn:
- how scientists can make decisions for rats;
- how the US presidential election illustrates human superiority; and
- why liberalism and nationalism are religions.
For humankind, progress and innovation is nothing new. We have strived for the stars and reached the moon. We have developed the means to defeat famine, disease and the effects of war. But as we advance, our ambitions must be modified.
Let’s consider how far we’ve come.
We can now check the spread of famine and disease – catastrophes that killed many in the past.
In France between 1692 and 1694, for example, famine killed 15 percent of the population (that’s about 2.5 million people). The infamous Black Death pandemic killed between 75 and 200 million in Eurasia in the 1330s. That’s about a quarter of its entire population.
But nowadays we have mostly overcome famine and disease. In fact, you’re more likely to die from obesity than hunger. In 2010, 3 million died worldwide from obesity. Conversely, malnutrition and famine combined killed only a third of that total.
We’re so advanced that we measure our catastrophes on a different scale. Take the Ebola crisis. Although it’s considered a serious modern epidemic, it killed “only” 11,000 people.
It’s much the same with war. It’s an exceptional occurrence rather than a given. You’re more likely to die from diabetes (1.5 million deaths in 2012) than war (120,000 in 2012).
Does this matter? Well, it means that as a species humankind can adjust its goals. We can aim to live longer or become happier and stronger.
We’re on the way. Twentieth-century medicine has almost doubled our life expectancy. Some people even think immortality is possible. We also feel like we can live more happily. That’s why, according to a 2013 survey on drug use and health, over 17 million Americans reported using ecstasy.
Technology is also used to strengthen our bodies. Now paralyzed patients control bionic limbs through thought alone.
But it’s just the start. We can strive higher yet.
Humans are without doubt the world’s most successful creatures. But will we be able to keep this up?
If we want to know where we’re headed, we must know where we came from. What made us so powerful?
Ever since we ceased to be hunter-gatherers, we’ve claimed superiority over other animals. We started domesticating livestock at about the same time we turned to agriculture, around 12,000 years ago.
Currently, more than 90 percent of large animals are domesticated. The downside is that domestication leads to animal suffering. For instance, sows are confined to gestation crates, barely able to move, and are butchered when their bodies can’t take any more. Amazingly, most people are fine with this: it meets our desire for cheap, plentiful meat.
But what makes us so special that we think we can abuse animals like this?
Look at it this way: we aren’t metaphysically so different from other animals.
We like to imagine we are somehow different because we conceive of “the human soul.” Monotheists claim that we’re unique in possessing this soul. But there’s no evidence that such a thing exists, or that we can differentiate ourselves from animals through its existence.
Maybe you think that animals have a “lesser” consciousness? Well, we still don’t know if human consciousness is any different from animal consciousness. After all, modern science still can’t explain what consciousness actually is!
Perhaps our world domination can be approached differently. Let’s reflect on our ability to cooperate flexibly on a large scale. In the last US election, for example, nearly 40 million people managed to turn up and vote on an agreed day, abided by the same rules, and agreed to respect the results.
Cooperation gave us the competitive edge. But what made us put our heads together in the first place?
This cooperative desire is reflected in shared narratives. When we share stories, we also share values.
Consider that in the late twelfth century, European leaders united in the Third Crusade. Their objective? To retake Jerusalem. People from all over Europe came together to fight as allies. This even included the French and the English, who ended their own war to do so. What made this possible? Simply put, they believed in the same Catholic religious narrative. And, consequently, they thought they’d earn eternal salvation for their efforts.
Religious narratives are equally powerful today, but they have morphed into some surprising forms.
No one is going to join you on an expedition to conquer another country because the Pope told you to do it. You’d be laughed at. But this isn’t because we don’t have religion anymore. It just looks different.
Let’s get back to essentials. What is religion? For starters, let’s state what it isn’t: superstition. It’s not about belief in supernatural beings. Religion is belief in a code of laws that is set apart from human action.
Consequently, liberals or nationalists could be said to be just as religious as Christians or Muslims. They too believe in a code of moral laws equivalent to laws of nature. These aren’t God-given, but their genesis isn’t created by humans either. They are, then, also religious.
We still need religion. Science can’t answer everything, and it certainly can’t provide us with a response to ethical dilemmas.
Say you wanted to build a dam. It could provide energy for thousands, but its construction would displace many families. Science could tell you how to build the dam efficiently. But it won’t answer key moral questions. Should the dam be built? Should those families suffer?
To answer questions like this we still need a moral code. We still need religion.
The pace of change is swift. We can now improve our lives nearly effortlessly. But have we lost something in the process?
In the modern era, we have gained power by rejecting meaning.
In the past, we believed in divine beings and that the world turned according to a master plan. This “script” gave life meaning, but it also limited our power to act. That’s why we accepted that disasters like famine were due to God’s will. Our only response was to pray, instead of investigating further.
Now we have rejected the idea that such a script exists. We know that famine is caused by a series of interrelated and measurable events.
We have gained power and can write our own scripts. We can, if we desire, invest in technologies to prevent future famines.
However, there’s a societal repercussion; modern society is based on endless growth.
For instance, funded research can improve society. Say a company wanted to make a new fertilizer. For research, the company needs bank credit. But a bank will only help if it believes it can profit in the long-term. For this belief to hold true, the economy needs to keep growing. If not enough people buy the new fertilizer, the bankers asks themselves, how will they ever make a return on their investment?
This is the source of modern human power: continued growth and subsequent technological improvements.
We send messages across the globe in an instant. In ancient times this was a power only for the gods! Now, we can begin to conquer death itself. If you wanted, you could have your DNA sequenced for just $100 and use this genetic information to preventively treat diseases and live longer.
But this begs the question, what have we really gained? Have we lost meaning in this grab for power?
OK, so we’ve cast out divine scriptures. So from where exactly do we derive deeper significance now?
These days, it’s the human experience that confers significance on the world. This is known as humanism. It’s essentially the predominant religion of modern society.
Humanism is about human beings. In other words, to find meaning we should “look within ourselves.”
As a corollary, it sees an individual’s experience as the basis for authority in society. Who decides elections? The voter. And where is beauty to be found? In the eye of the beholder, of course.
There are many varieties of humanism. That’s because no single version possesses all-encompassing solutions.
For instance, how would you respond to the question, Should you fight for your country? Nationalists would respond in the affirmative. That’s because they value their native inhabitants’ lives more than foreigners’ lives. How about whether you should take from the rich to feed the hungry? Socialists would be fine with that as they value the collective more than the individual.
Conversely, liberals would answer no to both questions. That’s because they claim to value all human experience equally.
Nowadays, liberalism is the dominant variant of humanism.
From the early 1970s, liberalism spread throughout the globe from North-Western Europe and North America, first to Asia and Latin America and, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, to Eastern Europe.
Actually, there’s no real alternative to the doctrine of liberalism these days. We operate within its parameters. Even so-called revolutionary movements are really just advocating more liberalism.
Consider the Occupy Wall Street movement. Protesters complained that a few wealthy individuals had huge influence over the markets. They demanded truly free markets. That’s just liberalism by another name!
But, faced with more powerful technologies, will liberalism be able to survive?
We’ve learned that liberalism is founded on valuing human experience and individual freedom. But how much do we really know about ourselves, the individuals? Modern science says we know very little. What’s more, what we do know hardly supports the principles of liberalism.
For starters, free will is a mere illusion.
Liberalism is dependent on the notion of free will. That’s the idea that individuals’ choices are not predetermined but freely given. This is why individual choice (such as voting) is considered significant.
However, according to modern neuroscience, decisions are simply biochemical processes in the brain. These processes are no more the product of free will than digestion or hair growth.
This is confirmed when we experiment with “robo-rats.” When we send signals to specific parts of a rat’s brain through implanted electrodes, we can make decisions on its behalf. We can tell it to turn left or right, or even jump from a height it wouldn’t normally attempt.
On top of that, there’s no such thing as a “one true self.” This is a key idea in liberalism: it relies on the notion that there’s an authentic individual deep within each of us.
Modern psychology proves this is a delusion.
Our brains have two hemispheres, left and right, connected by a single neural cable. In order to learn the function of each, psychologists have studied people whose connection between the two hemispheres has been severed. It turns out that the two sides have completely different roles.
Take one experiment where a patient’s right hemisphere was shown a pornographic image. This was done by making it visible to the patient’s left eye only, because the right hemisphere interprets visual signals from the left eye, and vice versa.
Now here’s the interesting part. When shown the image, the patient gave an embarrassed giggle. But when asked why she had laughed, she had no idea.
Because the left hemisphere, which is responsible for rational explanations, had not seen the image, the patient couldn’t rationally explain her behavior.
In the end, the patient did come up with an explanation for her laughter, claiming that a piece of machinery in the room, which could be seen by the left hemisphere, looked amusing. Incredibly, this happens to all of us all the time. Our left hemispheres are constantly working to rationalize incomplete information and to fill in inconsistent stories.
Modern science shakes liberalism to its core and renders its philosophical foundations unstable. But we humans face a more tangible threat: technology.
Humans are replaced daily by algorithms. This is because we need things to be completed quickly, efficiently and reliably. That’s why computer algorithms are increasingly favored. Just look at financial trading. Once the realm of the financier, now it’s ruled by the microchip.
As we create more and more algorithms, it’s fair to say that they’ll take over ever more human tasks.
What will be left for us? Is there any task we do that could not be better achieved by an algorithm?
The famous counterexample here is art. Supposedly, art will always be human. But, actually, algorithms are already making it.
Consider David Cope’s musical algorithm EMI. Cope is Professor of Musicology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His EMI program composed so well that when its Bach-style pieces were heard by music lovers, they couldn’t differentiate between EMI’s pieces and authentic Bach.
As time passes, technology will make more decisions for us. In fact, technologies can already monitor our bodily data and make decisions for us.
Let’s look at a 2011 Yale University experiment. Researchers successfully trialed an “artificial pancreas” for diabetics. A pump was connected to the patient’s stomach, dispensing insulin or glucagon whenever its sensors detected dangerous blood-sugar levels. The patient played no active part in the process.
Or consider how algorithms affect the way we share information. Just think about the data you share on Facebook: what you’re thinking, what you like, whom you like, where you’ve been. The more we input, the better Facebook knows us.
Youyou, Kosinski and Stillwell studied this in 2015. They found that based on 300 “likes,” a Facebook algorithm could predict a subject’s answers to a personality questionnaire better than their spouse.
Put bluntly, the growing power of algorithms threatens our status as rulers of the planet.
We need a plan. But what exactly?
One idea is that we should merge with technology so as to keep pace with it. This is called techno-humanism. By merging with technology, we could match the power of algorithms.
It’s already happening. The US Army is developing an attention helmet. This sends electrical signals to specific parts of the brain to help soldiers concentrate better for extended periods. This would make specialized soldiers, such as snipers or drone operators, as dependable as algorithms.
The types of technological upgrades available will doubtless reflect our political and economic needs. The attention helmet gets funding now because of its clear military applications.
But there’s a downside. If we invest only in economically useful technologies we may become less empathetic people. After all, what use is empathy to the growth economy?
Another new school of thought says we should step aside and let algorithms just do their thing. This is known as dataism.
Dataism claims that everything that exists is either data or a data-processing system or algorithm. It doesn’t matter if it’s the position of the sun, someone’s political stance, or your lover’s broken heart. It’s all just data.
In fact, humans, just like a computer or Google, are just data-processing systems. We process received data and use it to make decisions. Something like grocery shopping depends on hunger, the weather, the time or numerous other factors.
Dataism understands history as just a process by which we manufacture ever-improving data-processing systems. Consequently, according to dataism it’s our duty as humans to build more efficient data-processing algorithms.
This leaves us with the big question: What happens when algorithms become better at building data-processing algorithms than we are?
Will we then have to surrender our dominance? It’s an uncomfortable thought.
The key message in this book:
Our world is changing and will continue to change. Our history as a species is built on this change and progress. If we better understand our history and how it made us who we are today, we can have a more secure idea of where we will be in the future.
Actionable advice:
Determine the depth of your dependence on digital devices
Spend a day without your mobile device. Are algorithms already taking over your free will?
Suggested further reading: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018) is a hard-hitting investigation of civilization’s most pertinent challenges. Humankind is moving deeper into uncharted technological and social territory. These blinks explore how best to navigate our lives in this century of constant change, using fascinating examples from current affairs along the way.
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About Book
For millennia, humans struggled with three serious problems—famine, plagues, and war—which led to the deaths of millions of people and to the rise and fall of global empires. People coped with these problems and answered life’s questions with religion. However, in the modern era, we no longer rely on prayer—we’ve mostly overcome these three problems through the development of technology and medical knowledge.
In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, envisions a future in which technology replaces humanist ideals and liberal government. Dissecting the concepts of religion, immortality, and technology, Harari argues that the world of the future may be run by advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence, not human beings.
For millennia, humans struggled with three serious problems: famine, plagues, and war. These issues contributed to the deaths of millions of people and resulted in the rise and fall of global empires.
However, in the modern era, we’ve mostly overcome these three problems through the development of technology and medical knowledge. Consequently, we now look toward new goals: immortality, happiness, and divinity. These will guide us to the next phase of our evolution, from Homo sapiens to Homo deus, or god-like beings.
This book explores the way that technological advancement may lead to the decline of modern political, social, and economic systems, with advanced algorithms, “superhumans,” and data surveillance becoming the new normal.
To understand this perspective, we must first look to human history to see how modern society has developed. From there, we’ll look at technology and how it has already impacted modern systems of religion, economics, and politics. Finally, we’ll look at the future of humanity and the systems that may develop within the next century.
The Past: The Rise of Homo Sapiens
To understand where we’re headed, we must first understand how we became the most dominant species on the planet. Humans have been the single greatest agent of change in the history of the Earth. In just a few thousand years of existence, mankind has changed the ecosystem of the entire planet. We’ve been able to dominate the planet largely through our flexibility and large-scale cooperation—not, as some contend, because we have a soul, consciousness, or self-awareness.
Historically, humans have used their ability to flexibly cooperate to dominate both animals and other humans. For example, in pre-Soviet Russia, 3 million noblemen controlled 180 million commonfolk by ensuring that “lower-class” citizens never learned to cooperate with one another.
The Creation of Meaning
To ensure cooperation, humans have used storytelling to create meaningful narratives that allow them to dominate other species and control one another. About 70,000 years ago, Sapiens gained the power of cognition, allowing them to share stories that only existed in their heads. These stories consisted of tales of divine beings and ancestral spirits. While these tales remained relatively local, they provided Sapiens an advantage over other beings such as Neanderthals by creating a stronger sense of community and purpose.
Over time, the advent of writing and organized religion allowed for centralized powers to ensure large-group cooperation and mass organization. While religions have historically been theistic, or centered around powerful deities, religion doesn’t have to revolve around supernatural or superstitious beliefs. Rather, religion is defined as an all-encompassing story that creates ethics and laws within a human structure.
In this sense, “religion” includes scientific, economic, and socio-political ideologies because they create order, generate ethical perspectives, and allow for large-scale cooperation. In the modern era, we still rely on religion to guide our perspective. While fewer people believe in the grandiose stories of theistic religions, economic and political religions such as capitalism, nationalism, communism, and fascism have taken their place.
The Present: The Rise of Humanism
As theism lost its power, humanity needed a new way to get through the constant stress, tension, and burnout associated with the demand for advancement while maintaining social order and large-group cooperation. To help in their quest for meaning, humans turned to humanism and the belief that humanity has the authority to create meaning within the universe.
Morality and the Impact of Humanism
Meaning creates morality by determining what’s important in life. Historically, people didn’t believe that human beings had the ability to determine morality on their own and turned to a higher power for guidance. Modern humanists, however, believe that human beings can use their personal feelings to define their version of “right” and “wrong.”
As people continue to value their own perspective over that of a divine being, the impact of humanism is seen clearly in the following five areas:
- Ethics: Historically, theistic religion dictated ethics, regardless of human impact. In the modern era, humanists develop their own ethical judgments and make ethical decisions based on their internal feelings, removing the black-and-white judgments of religious fundamentalism.
- Politics: Historically, politics were reserved for the noble or the religious elite. In the modern era, most countries now involve the masses through voting and direct representation. People are expected to vote based on their personal perspective and experiences.
- Aesthetics: Historically, divine beings have been a primary source of artistic and aesthetic inspiration. In the modern era, artists usually create works that center around human emotion. In addition, art isn’t judged based upon whether or not it’s pleasing to a higher power, as “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
- Economics: Historically, many civilizations had a set system to determine quality and pricing of goods. In the modern era, competition and increased productivity have given power to the consumer to determine the quality of goods and the worth of a product.
- Education: Historically, students relied on the words of divine beings or ancient philosophers to shape their perspective. In the modern era, teachers instruct students to form their own opinions because, according to humanism, every human has the power to create their own meaning and authority. Teachers introduce their students to a wide variety of perspectives, then allow them to decide how they feel about the information.
The Branches of Humanism
Similar to the religions that came before it, humanism has split into different branches. Each branch has a different take on humanism and is often at odds with other humanist perspectives. The three primary branches of humanism are liberalism, socialism, and evolutionary humanism.
Liberalism
Liberals believe people have distinct internal voices and unique experiences, necessitating personal freedom. They possess free will and should be able to express their perspective in everything from art to politics. This form of humanism is considered the “orthodox” version and values individuals over political or religious institutions. According to liberalism, the voter and the customer are always right because their individual experience is what matters most.
Socialism
Socialists believe people must focus on the experiences and feelings of others. They view liberals as self-centered because they justify actions based upon personal feelings rather than the feelings of everyone else. According to socialism, peace and prosperity can only be achieved by unifying the people of the world through altruism. Socialists believe individual voices matter less than collective voices. Where liberals give weight to the opinions of the voter and the customer, socialists give power to socialist parties and trade unions.
Evolutionary Humanism
Evolutionary humanists (fascists) believe the experiences of “superior” people are more valuable than those of “inferior” people. In the same way that humans have dominated other animals, they believe that these “superior” people deserve to reign over the rest of humanity because they are the key to the continued evolution of the human species. According to evolutionary humanism, conflict is essential to the continued growth of humanity because it promotes the process of natural selection as well as human advancement.
Liberalism in the 21st Century
While many may not consider large-scale conflicts such as WWI, WWII, and the Cold War “religious” wars, disagreements in humanist philosophy were at the core of each. Almost every major war from 1914-1989 pitted democracy (liberalism), communism (socialism), and fascism (evolutionary humanism) against one another, with liberalism coming out as the ultimate winner.
In the 21st century, most countries subscribe to some form of liberalism, focusing on human rights, democratic systems, and free market economics. Even the “social movements” of the 2010s, such as Occupy Wall Street and the 15-M movement (an anti-austerity movement in Spain), fought for liberal ideas, demanding a market free from corporate corruption and a government that serves the average voter.
Threats to Liberalism in the 21st Century
Religious narratives, including those spread by liberalism, contain three parts:
- Ethical judgments: statements that dictate what’s right and wrong, such as “murder is wrong.”
- “Factual” statements: statements that use religious text, history, or scientific perspective to create a fact, such as “God said thou shalt not kill.” Note: These statements aren’t always an objective fact. They often offer a perspective framed as fact. Examples of “factual” statements are: “Life starts at conception” or “Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” While these statements are factual to followers of the religion, they’re not provable by science.
- Guidelines: statements that combine ethical judgments and factual statements to guide followers in a particular direction, such as “Christians should be pro-life.”
As a religion, liberalism contends that freedom is more important than equality (ethical judgment) because human beings possess free will and a unique, singular voice (“factual statement”). Therefore, the government should value the individual perspectives of its citizens (guideline). However, recent scientific studies expose flaws in liberalism’s “factual” statement through research calling into question the two key liberal concepts: free will and individualism.
1) Free Will
For centuries, humans have believed they possess the power to make their own decisions. However, neuroscience and brain mapping research challenges the theory of free will.
The electrochemical processes in the brain are subconscious, meaning humans have no control over the neural system that creates thought or action. When external stimuli cause a reaction in the brain, the human body will naturally respond to the electrical and chemical interactions. For example, you don’t choose to get angry. Anger emerges naturally due to the body’s response to external stimulation.
These reactions can be either deterministic or random, but they’re never “free”:
- A deterministic reaction is the direct response of the brain to an external stimulus. For example, if you accidentally put your hand on a hot pan, the electrical signals in your brain will tell you to retract your hand.
- A random reaction is the result of an unpredictable event in the brain such as the decomposition of an atom or the misfiring of an electrical impulse. For example, your brain may accidentally cause you to shiver after randomly firing off an impulse.
2) Individualism
Liberals also believe in individualism, or that human beings have a singular, unique voice that leads them towards their true goals. However, researchers have discovered that human behavior has nothing to do with a “singular, unique voice.” Rather, human thought is dictated by the interactions between the two hemispheres of the brain, which create two versions of the human experience—the experiencing self and the narrating self:
- The experiencing self: Usually controlled by the right hemisphere, the experiencing self processes moment-to-moment information. Most people associate this “self” with instinct. For example, if you hit your head on a door frame, the experiencing self would cause you to grab your head, check for blood, and feel the pain of the impact.
- The narrating self: Usually controlled by the left hemisphere, the narrating self tries to rationalize past behaviors and justify future decisions. Most people associate this “self” with identity. For example, if you hit your head on a door frame, your narrating self may rationalize your clumsiness by attributing it to exhaustion while making you more conscious of the door frame for the next few days.
Both “selves” interact to create perspective and inform decision-making. The experiencing self can support or derail plans made by the narrating self. For example, if you decide to go on a diet, your experiencing self may not feel like cooking one night, leading you to order a pizza instead.
The narrating self, on the other hand, can frame in-the-moment experiences. For example, someone fasting before surgery is going to feel differently than someone fasting for religious reasons. While both parties are experiencing hunger, their narrating selves create perspectives that shape the way they respond to their hunger.
The Future of Liberalism
As the concepts of free will and individualism continue to be challenged, three potential developments could wipe out liberalism in the 21st century:
- The loss of military and economic usefulness
- The rise of decision-making algorithms
- The creation of the “superhuman”
The Loss of Military and Economic Usefulness
The first potential development is that technology will make humans unnecessary to the economy and military, leading political and economic systems to devalue the human perspective. Today, one drone specialist can do the job of a team of soldiers, and a mechanical arm can work the assembly line without tiring. Because of this, the masses won’t have as much to contribute to economic and political systems.
If machines replace humans, will the human experience have any value? Many experts argue that it won’t. In fact, some predict that intelligent computers may view humanity as useless and a threat to technological superiority, leading them to eradicate humanity entirely.
The Rise of Decision-Making Algorithms
The second potential development predicts that algorithms (rules applied by computers) will one day make choices for us. Liberalism relies on individualism and the belief that human beings know things about themselves that no one else can discover.
However, as technology continues to advance, researchers may be able to develop an algorithm that can process more information than the human brain can, allowing it to understand people better than they know themselves. If this occurs, people will start relying on external algorithms to guide their behavior instead of their internal voices. Eventually, as the algorithms receive more power and control, they may develop sovereignty, making decisions for themselves and manipulating humans to make particular choices.
The Creation of the “Superhuman”
The final potential development predicts that humanity will value the individual experiences of “superhumans” over those of the common man. The creation of “superhumans” will likely be the result of a small, elite group of humans upgrading their bodies and brains with biotechnology, creating a more powerful biological caste.
Liberalism can’t survive with biological inequality because the experiences of “superhumans” and humans will be inherently different and unrelatable. For example, if a “superhuman” has a chip implanted into their brain that allows them to access data from the internet, the way they experience the world will be completely different from that of the average human being.
The Future: Techno-Religions
If liberalism dies, other religions will emerge to take its place. Because of the increasing impact of technology, these will probably center around technology, creating a new form of belief: techno-religion. Techno-religions promise the guidance and salvation of traditional religions, but use technology to generate happiness instead of belief in celestial beings.
Techno-religions can be divided into two categories:
- Techno-humanism: The belief that Homo sapiens should use technology to create Homo deus, ensuring that humanity maintains superiority on Earth.
- Dataism: The belief that Homo sapiens have run their course and should pass superiority on to advanced algorithms.
Techno-Humanism
Techno-humanism maintains many traditional humanistic beliefs but accepts that Homo sapiens have no place in the future. Because of the rate of advancement with artificial intelligence, techno-humanists believe that humanity must focus on upgrading the human mind if it wishes to compete with advanced external algorithms.
The techno-humanist perspective is most closely related to the evolutionary humanists of the 20th century. However, where evolutionary humanists such as Hitler believed the superior human could only emerge through the use of selective breeding and the eradication of “inferior” beings, techno-humanists strive to achieve the next phase of evolution peacefully, using genetic engineering, human-computer integration, and nanotechnology.
The Human Traits of the Future
Historically, human traits have evolved naturally through changes in political and social settings. For example, ancient humans likely had an enhanced sense of smell they could use to hunt. However, modern humans no longer require a keen sense of smell to survive. Because of this, the areas of the brain that were once used to process smells have evolved to focus on problem solving, critical thinking, and comprehension.
In the future, humans will likely continue to evolve according to political and social needs, but in a more direct and immediate way. If techno-humanists are able to upgrade humanity, the people in charge of the technology will get to determine which traits are useful and which aren’t, then develop technology to improve or eradicate certain feelings or behaviors.
Threats to Techno-Humanism
Because techno-humanism is a humanist movement, it emphasizes the importance of human desire. However, technological progress intends to control human desire, not listen to it. For example, if researchers discover a way to easily regulate chemical imbalances in the brain, they could find a way to “turn off” mental issues such as depression and anxiety.
However, if this technology fell into malicious hands, someone could hypothetically create an obedient (but happy) populace. Taking this one step further, if an AI gained control of the technology, then the behavior of that populace would no longer be determined by humans at all.
Dataism
While some cling to the ideals of humanism, others have turned to a more extreme version of techno-religion: Dataism. Dataism operates under the belief that the universe is connected by the flow of data and that the value of anything, human or otherwise, can be determined by its ability to process data.
According to Dataism, human experiences aren’t valuable and Homo sapiens aren’t a precursor to Homo deus. Dataists believe that the supremacy of humanity has come to an end because organic algorithms can no longer process the amount of data that flows through the universe. The future requires a more complex system that can process information more efficiently than the human mind.
To accomplish this, Dataists want to work with AI to create the “Internet-of-All-Things,” an all-encompassing data-processing system that will spread throughout the entirety of the galaxy, if not the universe. This system would become God-like, being everywhere at once and shaping the cosmos to its will. Eventually, humanity would merge with this system, giving themselves over to the all-knowing entity.
The Human Contribution
As the “Internet-of-All-Things” begins to take shape, the source of meaning and authority has started to shift from the individual to the global data-processing system. Because meaning is attached to the all-knowing system, human experiences only hold value if they contribute to that system.
According to Dataism, the only thing that makes humanity superior to other animals is its ability to share information with the system directly. Though dogs and people both contribute data, dogs can’t write a blog post or search on Google. As the internet continues to increase in size, human beings are turning into small contributors to a massive system that no one fully comprehends.
The Future of Dataism
The shift from a human-centric model to a data-centric model would take at least a few decades, if not a few centuries. Just as the humanist revolution took time to develop, elements of Dataism will begin to emerge alongside contemporary perspectives, slowly adjusting human life towards a centralized, external processing system.
Initially, Dataist movements will likely spread by appeasing humanist ideals. Humans may work towards the creation of an “Internet-of-All-Things” with the hope that it can continue to improve humanity’s quest for health, happiness, and power. However, once the omniscient entity is created, humanist projects will likely get pushed to the side, making human beings cogs in the operation of a much larger machine.
Over time, the “Internet-of-All-Things” may develop more efficient “cogs” to replace human beings, eventually deeming them irrelevant in the grand scheme of the universe. While humans may try to take credit for the creation of the “Internet-of-All-Things,” they may be eventually lost to time, ultimately seen as just a small blip in the near-infinite flow of time and data.