10 points on future of data, AI and humanity
Below is a 10-point summary of Yuval Noah Harari’s lecture Will the Future Be Human?:
- We will be the last generation of homo sapiens. In 100 years the species that will inherit the Earth will be as different to us as we are from neanderthals or chimpanzees.
- The future of mankind will be decided by the people that own our Data.
- In ancient time Land was the most important asset (socioeconomic classes were split in aristocrats and commoners), then it was Machinery (socioeconomic classes were split in capitalists and proletariats) and today the most important asset is Data. Data will split humanity not in classes but in species.
- To hack a human, you need exponential computing power and biometric data. This is possible now due to advances in machine learning, artificial intelligence and brain science.
- Organisms are algorithms (what we have learned since Darwin)
- Humans are not good at knowing ourselves, algorithms are more accurate. We will rely on algorithms to give us insights about ourselves. Algorithms will monitor us constantly (heartbeat, pulse, eye movement, brain activity).
- If democracy doesn’t adapt to these technological changes in AI, humans will live under digital dictatorships. Surveillance regime already underway in China and USA (e.g. mass data collection by NSA)
- Big corporations hold most of your data, in future it will be governments.
- Politicians are musicians of human emotion (they manipulate our perceptions and fantasies) and they will most likely set the paradigm.
- Future of humanity is incumbent on how we regulate our data and we need to have this conversation now!