On reading Homo Deus

 

In his masterpiece “Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow” author Yuval Noah Harari states, ‘If you experience something – record it. If you record something – upload it. If you upload something – share it.” It is my absolute pleasure to share what I felt when I finished reading this book.

In 2009 I visited Israel under On the Job training from the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, TU. This had embossed a unique facet of the country; its advancement in arms and agriculture and Jerusalem, the common holy city of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

I had long heard a lot about Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow and always craved to read those masterpieces by him. I got hold of Homo Deus which hurled me into a series of thoughts; do I need to read “Sapiens” before I read “Homo Deus”?

I decided. Homo Deus it be. 

This book is a quintessential in terms of thoughts provocation and pushes a reader into a different realm of mind process. The way Harari has weaved the book with different facts, figures, anecdotes, and chronicles; is not just clairvoyant but is also spellbinding which ignites a fire of desire to cling on to it. He has ingeniously set forth a philosophy about the course of future Homo sapiens beholds under the current technological advancement and inundation of data. He has aptly stated, “People just want to be part of the data flow, even if that means giving up their privacy, their autonomy, and their individuality.” He has profoundly articulated the probable evolution of Homo Sapiens into Homo Deus and how Artificial Intelligence can conquer humankind. He adroitly ends his book with three enigmatic questions:

1.     Are organisms really just algorithms, and is life really just data processing?

2.     What’s more valuable – intelligence or consciousness?

3.     What will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?

(Completed reading: 1 AM November 20, 2020,     My Rating: 5 stars)