Nexus
Books | History / Civilization
5
Yuval Noah Harari
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world.“Striking 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 WaveFor 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.
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Author
Yuval Noah Harari
Pages
528
Publisher
Random House Publishing Group
Published Date
2024-09-10
ISBN
059373422X 9780593734223
Community ReviewsSee all
"An interesting read. The way Yuval explains the history of information flow and its impact is especially compelling. While this book can feel a bit too preachy at times, it’s nevertheless thoughtful. For those with a positive view of AI, like me, this book offers a grounded perspective that challenges some of those fancies."
"Yet another book by this author that is a must read. He has a way of compiling a ton of information and simplifying it in a way that is both cohesive and concise, giving the reader important surrounding context in a way that is easy to approach and not overwhelming. Given the focus on and exponential developments in AI, this book is very timely. If you’ve read up a bit on AI already, I promise this is still an important one to put on your to read list. His style of distilling information allows the reader to consider concerns offered in a very tangible way that I have not seen in other books on the subject of AI. "
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CaitVD
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