NEXUS (Part 1): Can Democracy Survive the AI Revolution? (with Yuval Noah Harari)

The Next Big Idea

Next Big Idea Club

Self-improvement, Arts, Books, Society & Culture, Education

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2024

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Yuval Noah Harari published an essay in the New York Times the other day. “Large-scale democracies,” he wrote, “became feasible only after the rise of modern information technologies like the newspaper, the telegraph and the radio. The fact that modern democracy has been built on top of modern information technologies means that any major change in the underlying technology is likely to result in a political upheaval.” Well, we’re witnessing a major change in the underlying technology right now. Artificial intelligence is here, and if its proponents are to be believed, it will fundamentally transform how we consume information and communicate with each other. What this means for the future of democracy — and society as we know it — is the subject of Harari’s new book Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. Host: Rufus Griscom Guest: Yuval Noah Harari 🎤 This conversation was recorded in front of a live audience in New York City last week. To learn more about our upcoming events, visit nextbigideaclub.com/events 2️⃣ Part two of this interview will be available on Thursday. If you can’t wait until then, you can listen now by downloading the The Next Big Idea app 📥 We launched a Substack! Subscribe now at bookoftheday.nextbigideaclub.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	LinkedIn presents.
0:05.0	I'm Rufus Griskum and this is the next big idea.
0:10.0	Today, what does AI mean for the future of democracy? So, Last week we had a very special guest join us for a live podcast taping in New York
0:41.2	City with 200 fans of the show. The guest was Yval Noah Harare.
0:47.0	If you don't know that name, you've probably heard of his first book, Sapiens, which along with his later books, Homo deus and 21
0:55.2	lessons for the 21st century, sold over 40 million copies.
1:00.6	I spoke with Yval after the release of his much anticipated new book, Nexus, a brief history of information networks from the Stone Age to AI.
1:10.0	Why, you might ask, did these sweeping overviews of human history and speculations about our future,
1:16.8	written by a young Israeli historian, sell like thrillers by Stephen King?
1:22.1	Perhaps because the story of our species is a thriller when told properly,
1:27.0	a story about a rapacious clever animal that reinvents the world over and over
1:32.0	and in the process threatens its future.
1:35.4	The thesis of Harare's latest book, Nexus, is relatively simple.
1:39.6	Throughout human history, whenever we've invented a powerful new information technology, whether it's
1:44.7	clay tablets or the printing press, the telegraph or social media, we have disrupted the foundations
1:50.9	of human society, often with devastating consequences.
1:55.5	So what about our latest invention, artificial intelligence?
1:59.0	What should we expect?
2:00.7	And when you have a major upheaval in information technology, you have an earthquake in democracies,
2:07.0	and we are experiencing it right now all over the world, and if we don't pay attention and do something about it,
2:14.0	democracy might collapse in the next few years because of this information revolution.
2:20.0	The human story continues and we are currently at a cliffhanger.
	...

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