REVIEWS FOR HOMO DEUS

Tom's Review

 I HATE this book. The best thing I can say about it is there are no glaring grammatical errors. I chalk that
up to the editor. I rate it one digit. The middle one.
The book’s premise is that Homo Sapiens will reach top-end in the next hundred years and give way to
Homo Deus the way Neanderthal did to Cro-Magnon did to Homo Sapiens. It’s the end of humanity as
we know it.
The reason? Algorithms. Forget climate change or pandemics or WMDs. As it turns out, all earthly life
forms are united not by elements or molecules or atoms or even elementary and composite particles,
but algorithms, all of which are in the hands of the one-true one-percenters, those humans rich or smart
enough to program and control artificial intelligence and its biotechnological variants. Is it just me, or
does this sound like the love-child of Dr. Strangelove and Ayn Rand as delivered by L. Ron Hubbard?
So let’s cut to the chase for all us ninety-nine percenters. Assuming the global population has topped
out at its current level of 7.5 billion people, that means 75 million people can aspire to “Deus”. The
remaining 74.25 billion of us will be, in the author’s own word, “useless”. AI will make better burgers,
be better doctors and compose better music. The best we can hope for is a Wall-E-like hermetically-
sealed existence of audio-visual stimulation. To paraphrase Leonard Cohen, “I have seen the future,
baby/And it is torpor.”
Just as the Industrial Revolution weaved more more-fashionable clothing, stamped out more more-
precise tools and produced more just-plain convenience, the AI Revolution will produce on a mass scale
the things Homo Deus rightly identifies as cutting-edge technology. But that’s the problem I have with
this book--it can only know current technology. Algorithms. AI. Replacement body parts. The Internet-of-
All-Things. Forecasting the future is a mug’s game. Let’s say this book was written in 1900. It could have
easily predicted the demise of the horse and the rise of the car. It could have predicted the household
applications of electricity. It could have likely predicted rocketry. But quantum physics? Antibiotics? The
microchip? Breaking Bad?
The only thing I felt I learned from this book is that the one-percenters do in fact dictate the future. Size
of numbers doesn’t matter. The history of the 19 th Century that drove the 20 th Century wasn’t dictated
by the 99% of us plebs worshipping some regional fable but the one-percent of scientists, industrialists,
capitalists and artists. Same for the 20 th C driving the 21 st . Sure, we and our political representatives can
get in the way with the mass slaughter of a world war or two, but somehow we also progress.
And remain “useful”. Trawl through your family history and look at the names of the jobs your great-
great grand-father and -uncles and -aunts and -cousins were doing in factories in Manchester and
Pittsburgh. The names are just as quaint as “cooper” or “thatcher” or “smith”, and just as obsolete.
One can only hope the same fate awaits “human resources” and “consultant”.
Throughout its first half, this book bangs on with logorrhoetic clichés supported by cherry-picked
examples about how we Homo Sapiens evolved to where we’re at. Darwin was right, the Bible is
wrong--knock me over with an ass’s jaw. But to predict that the next stage of evolution is one that will
make 99% of humanity “useless” is to contradict the most basic tenet of Darwinism: it’s not survival of
the fittest; it’s survival of the most adaptable.
And so let me make a generalization no less sweeping than the many made by Homo Deus. We 99%ers
will adapt. We will find a way to make ourselves useful in jobs with names the 23r d C. will find quaint and

archaic. And Homo Sapiens will abide.

Two Stars

--------------------
EDITOR'S NOTE AND ERIC'S REVIEW: 


FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HATE TECHNOLOGY, TOM'S REVIEW WAS WRITTEN IN MICROSOFT WORD, POSSIBLY ONE OF THE WORST PROGRAMMES EVER TO BE FOISTED ON AN UNSUSPECTING POPULACE...SO COPYING IT INTO THIS HTML MESSES UP THE FORMATTING, WHICH, I AM SORRY TO SAY, COMES INTO THE CBATFI* CATEGORY.

*CAN'T BE ARSED TO FIX IT.

WHICH ACTUALLY, CONFIRMS HARARI'S THESIS WHICH TOM IS SO CAREFUL TO DEBUNK.

WE ARE ALL INDEED DOOMED AT THE HANDS OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. (OR AT LEAST THOSE WHO ARE BEHOLDEN TO MICROSOFT).

BUT WHEN THE GREAT ELECTROMAGNETIC EVENT (THE ASTEROID, THE VOLCANIC ERUPTION, THE CYBERWAR, THE NUCLEAR BASHFEST) HAPPENS....ALL OF HARARI'S THESIS....WHIC IS PREDICATED ON THE STORAGE AND USE OF ELECTRONS, WILL BE ABOUT AS USEFUL AS PAPER INSTRUCTIONS OF HOW TO FIX THE LIGHTS IN THE PITCH BLACKNESS OF A CAVE....WHERE THE WHOLE STORY OF HOMO SAPIENS ALL BEGAN.

AND WE WILL GET TO SEE EXACTLY HOW HOMO DEUS HAS EVOLVED TO SURVIVE WHAT HAPPENS.

THIS QUALIFIES AS MY REVIEW, BY THE WAY, AND I GAVE THE BOOK A 4. 

AS A STIMULATION FOR DISCUSSION, HOWEVER,  I GIVE IT A 5.

BY THE WAY, I HAVE WRITTEN THIS IN CAPS TO REPLICATE WHAT I MUST DO, IN A CROWDED RESTAURANT, TO HAVE DISCOURSE WITH MY FELLOW JFDIERS. 

----------------
 Joe's Review

I love facts- and the fact that I can only tie a few of them together into a cohesive, consistent and creditable narrative is probably what has stopped me from becoming, well.....a lot of things.

In that vein, Homo Deus was interesting.  Lots of great facts, some very interesting and insightful hypotheses were presented.  I'm just not sure that I agree with most of the major conclusions.  Granted, I'm a bit older than the target audience for this book in many ways, but I do know and speak to a few younger- and older- people.  

We are not all addicted to Facebook and Google, we aren't all gadgeted up and, eventually, chipped up to have our hearts, hormones and humours measured, calibrated and diagnosed.  And, if we were, does the algorithm really exist that can solve the black box riddle of human consciousness and intent ?

The author falls into the very trap he describes in the opening sequences of the book; i.e. the delusion that the latest technology, in this case the well tempered computer algorithm, can fathom human interactions and intent.

Does Facebook or Google really know how I would vote, thereby obviating the democratic process- i.e. who needs elections when I know who you'll vote for anyway.  You might be surprised.

And let's not talk about humans living forever.  That is a very long way away, if at all possible.  All scientific research indicates there are limits for the lifetime of our cells.  And given that any such treatment would be hyperbolically expensive, it all sounds a bit implausible.  Having Peter Thiel live forever is not beneficial to humanity and I'm not sure we, the remaining Untermenschen, would gladly submit to the Übermenschen.

All in all an interesting take on some topics with some very unusual facts.  As a thirty page article I would have enjoyed the provocative thesis, but as an entire, overlong book it left me unconvinced.  Wish I had read my new John LeCarre book instead- now there's some insight into human nature and a good story !

Jawohl !

I