Nexus
A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
Ratings5
Average rating3.1
15
A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
Ratings5
Average rating3.1
For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite allour 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.
Reviews with the most likes.
Mildly entertaining. I did like the book Sapiens so I had pretty high expectations. Not very enlightening given I already have consumed media about LLMs and their future. If you want to really learn about the future of AI may I recommend listening to a podcast hosting the ceo of open Ai. In my experience I've learned more from those than this book. This book has all kind of details that seem irrelevant. At various points after I engaged the mental energy to understand the author's points, I found them to be shallow and uninformative.
