What will happen to us humans?

Last week I was drinking tea in a bookstore when my husband showed me a book. I toughed the pages of ‘Homo Deus’  gently. I turned over the pages, reading only the subtitles. These subtitels elicited a happy smile. I whispered slowly the titels that headed the chapters: The last Days of Death, The Right to Happiness, What Kind of World did Human Create.

I knew I had to read this book of Yuval Noah Harari, not only the subtitels but every letter.

…Having raised humanity above the beastly level of survival struggles, we will now aim to upgrade human into gods and turn Homo Sapiens into Homo Deus.

…For countless generations our biochemical system adapted to increasing our chances of survival and reproduction, not our happiness.

In this century, dataism may sideline humans by shifting from homo-centric to a data-centric view. Dataism is the belief that “the universe consists of data flows, and the value of any phenomenon or entity is detemined by its contribution of data processing”. Humanism gives us detailed practical instructions on how to listen to ourself, recommending things such as have a heart-to-heart talk with a good friend, keep a private diary. But Harari claims feelings are no longer the best guides

…Whereas humanism commanded: ‘ Listen to your feelings!’ Dataism will commands: ‘Listen to the algorithms! They know how you feel.’

Is Dataism taking over the world? Homo Deus explores the challenges and, for me, also the nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? How will we protect this fragile world ?

I believe nobody knows how the world will look like in 2050. What religions, economic systems or political structure will dominate the world? This book challenges me deeply to think about life and everything I believe in: What will happen to our world when non-conscious but extremely intelligent algorithms dominates?  Is life really only just dataprocessing? How can we connect dataism with humanism? Is that even possible?

Fascinating book; a must read!