Israeli historian told what it is worth preparing for humanity

Israeli medievalist historian Yuval Noah Harari, author of the world bestsellers “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” and “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow,” spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He spoke about his vision of the future of work and how people will change in the face of constant technological revolutions. His speech is quoted by the publication “Capital«.

Professor Yuval Noi Harari
Photo: facebook / יובל נח הררי Yuval Noah Harari

About future work

Over the course of history, the understanding of work has changed several times. For quite a long period (we can say most of their history) people did not work at all - they survived. That is, the very idea of ​​work: I get up and at eight in the morning I go to work, where I am until five in the evening, this is a modern concept. Our ancestors, hunters and gatherers, for hundreds of thousands of years without work. Anxiety due to job loss is also a relatively new phenomenon. In the course of the industrial revolutions of the last centuries, man constantly experienced fear that machines would prevail, and he himself would become unnecessary. However, this time, I think, this may turn out to be true. As in the case of a boy who shouted: "Wolves!". In the end, the wolves came.

Now people are faced with a more terrible concept than exploitation, with their uselessness. When you are exploited, you at least know that you are important, that there is no one else to work. Hence the first problem with the growth of anxiety. I think new professions will still appear. The question is whether people can “reinvent” themselves in order to fill these vacancies. And we will have to reinvent ourselves every 10 years, as we are experiencing not one technological revolution, but their whole cascade. Reinventing yourself in 20 years is one thing, but changing further - in 30, 40, 50 years - is very difficult, it also greatly increases our anxiety.

People generally do a lot of things that are not considered work. For example, raise children. And most of the work that people have been doing over the past few centuries is simply not in their nature. We cannot call something “natural” work for man.

We pay too much attention to robotization when we talk about the future of the employment market. We should pay as much attention to biotechnology. Many new professions will be associated with an understanding of human emotions. Even unmanned vehicles will have to understand how pedestrians behave. And even more so this is true if the machines replace bankers or social workers.

If you look at things a little differently, it becomes clear: you need to protect not professions, but people. You can reject some of the professions as unnecessary - they are not worth keeping them. Who wants to be a cashier all his life? We should think about people, not about professions. In this case, we have a crisis of not employment, but a crisis of the meaning of work.

As a historian, I note that compared to the Middle Ages, people now live simply in paradise, but for some reason they do not feel that way. We can work hard, be efficient, but we do not know how to relax. If we solve the problem with the crisis of the meaning of work, we will solve the problem with leisure.

The best advice I could give is to invest in your own adaptability. All of your investment — learning a particular skill, such as programming — is a lottery. You do not know for sure whether this or that skill will be useful to you, but in times of chaos you will definitely need emotional stability, the ability to survive all these changes. However, it is very difficult. I do not know of any university where they would teach this.

About the future of the human race

I don’t remember exactly who made an interesting thought: if they tell you about the 2050 year and it looks like science fiction, it’s probably not true. But if the 2050 description of the year doesn't sound like science fiction, then this is definitely not true.

We may be one of the last generations. Homo sapiens. In a century or two, the Earth will be inhabited by organisms that are just as different from us as we are from Neanderthals or chimpanzees. Indeed, in the next generations we will learn to modify our body and mind, and this will become the main product of the economy of the 21st century.

Photo: facebook / יובל נח הררי Yuval Noah Harari

How exactly will the future owners of the planet look like? It will be decided by those who own the information. In the hands of those who will control it, there will be control over life on the planet. Information is the most important asset in the world. Not land, as in antiquity, not industrial equipment, as in the last couple of centuries. What happens if too much information is concentrated in the hands of a small handful of favorites? Humanity is divided. But not on classes, but on different types.

Information is so important because we have reached the point where we can “hack” not only computers, but also the human body. Two things are needed for this: a large computing power and a huge amount of data, in particular biometrics. Until today, no one had these ingredients to “hack” humanity. Even the KGB or the Spanish Inquisition, who were able to observe people around the clock, could not.

Now the situation is changing thanks to two simultaneous revolutions: the development of computer science (the flowering of machine learning, artificial intelligence) and the development of biology, in particular neurobiology. This gives us the necessary insight into how the human brain works. One can summarize a century and a half of biological research in three words: organisms are algorithms. And we are now learning how to decipher these algorithms.

Perhaps the most important invention for both revolutions is a biometric sensor that translates biochemical processes in our body and brain into electronic signals that a computer can analyze. By deciphering these algorithms, you can create creatures that are better than humans. But how these creatures will subsequently apply these technologies, to be honest, I have no idea.

Now this process is conducted on three fronts. The first is bioengineering, scientists grow new organs, update old ones, interfere with the body at the genetic level, and so on. But this is also the most conservative front, since it uses the traditional "bricks", of which the organism is complex, as we have known it for the last several billion years. The second approach is more radical - a combination of organic and inorganic (bionic hand, computer interface in the brain, the second immune system created from millions of nanorobots, and so on). But even in this case, your brain remains organic, despite the fact that it is connected to various kinds of devices, the Internet.

The third — and most radical — creation of completely inorganic life forms. Is it possible to do this, while an open question. The mystery of consciousness remains unsolved - we still have no idea what it is or how it appears in humans. The general consensus is that consciousness is in the brain, and if you “hack” it and understand how these billions of neurons work, creating experience and emotions, then there will be no barriers to recreating them on another “material”. We may not succeed with inorganic life forms, but more and more serious scientists are convinced that sooner or later this will happen.

People do not really know themselves. Therefore, algorithms are a real chance to get to know yourself better. I will give an example from my personal life: in the 21 year I realized my homosexuality, before that I denied it. I am not an exception - many people live, denying this fact, they simply do not know something very important about themselves. Imagine a situation where the algorithm will be able to tell a teenager about his orientation through 10 – 20 for years. The algorithm tracks the movement of your eyes, pressure, brain activity and tells you who you are. Even if you hide your orientation from friends and colleagues, this data can get Amazon, Google, Facebook. The algorithms that follow you will tell, for example, Coca-Colathat if the company wants to sell you its drink, you should not show ads with naked girls. You will not even notice this, but corporations are well aware that this information is worth billions.

How to regulate the ownership of information? Unlike land and industrial equipment, information is everywhere and at the same time nowhere, it can be copied, it is distributed at an incredible speed, and so on. Who owns the information about me? Currently, most of the data is owned by corporations, and people are worried. But if you authorize governments to nationalize information, it will lead to a digital dictatorship.

About the digital dictatorship

When we have algorithms that can understand me better than myself, they can predict my desires, manipulate my emotions, and even make decisions for me. If we are not careful, the digital dictatorship will come. In the 20th century, democracy replaced the dictatorship, as it was better at data processing and decision making. Democracy distributes information and empowers institutions and people to make decisions. The dictatorship concentrates all information and decision making in one hand. The first model worked more efficiently, so, for example, the American economy surpassed the Soviet one.

However, in the 21st century, the biotechnological revolution can swing the pendulum in the opposite direction: the centralized distribution of information can become more efficient. If democracy does not adapt to the new conditions, new people will live under the digital dictatorship. Take, for example, North Korea: people there will wear, say, special biometric bracelets. When a person enters the room and sees a portrait of another great leader, the bracelet counts his emotions, pressure and transfers the data to the appropriate authorities - this is what the digital dictatorship will look like.

Information control will allow world elites to do something even more radical than the digital dictatorship. By “hacking” organisms, elites will be able to restructure the future of life. And this will be the greatest revolution in the history of not just humanity, but all life on Earth. For 4 billion years, the rules for the existence of life on the planet did not change, all living things obeyed the laws of natural selection and organic biochemistry. But now science replaces evolution by natural selection with evolution by intelligent design. The plan is not God's, but human. If you do not resolve this issue, a tiny group of people, the elite, will get access to it and will determine the future of life on Earth.

Many politicians are like musicians: they play on human emotions and the biochemical system. The politician makes a speech, and the whole country is gripped by fear. The politician publishes a tweet, and - an explosion of anger. I don’t think that it is worth giving these “musicians” the most advanced instruments, much less trusting life in the Universe. In addition, they do not even have their own vision of the future. Instead, they feed the public nostalgic fantasies about the past. As a historian, I can tell you about the past. First of all, it was not so cool there - you would not want to go there. In addition, the past will not return. Therefore, nostalgic fantasies are not the solution.

Who should the information belong to? Honestly I do not know. The discussion about this has just begun. You can not wait for an immediate answer to this important question. Scientists, philosophers, lawyers and even poets should join the discussion. Especially the poets! After all, the future depends not only on humanity, but also on life itself on the planet.

But progress is insignificant. Most people do not realize what is happening and what is at stake. Many governments (with the exception of the Chinese authorities - everyone understands everything there) also wave them off: we have more urgent business. And it is very dangerous. As a historian, I try to convey to as many people as possible what is happening in the world, so that as many people as possible take part in the discussion of our common future.

About fake news

Again, as a historian, I do not understand all this hysteria around fake news. They have always been! What era can be called true? In the 80, 30 of the last century, in the Middle Ages - there was always a lie, governments lied, propaganda worked. I believe that in a sense, the situation is now even improved. As a medievalist, I try to look at everything through the prism of the Middle Ages, and believe me: then everything was much worse with fake news. I think a more serious problem can be considered the flow of information in general. That is, even truthful information in such a volume is difficult to digest, logically comprehend it, and create an objective picture of the world.

We really lack the ability not to distinguish lies from truth, but to comprehend information. The problem with the press is not that it publishes fictional news, but how focused it is to help people have an understanding of the global picture of the world. The real problem is that the media just aspires to launch another story into people as quickly as possible, no matter if it is true or not.

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