Nexus : a brief history of information networks from the Stone Age to AI Cover Image

Nexus : a brief history of information networks from the Stone Age to AI / Yuval Noah Harari.

Summary:

"For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite all our discoveries, inventions, and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing headlong into the age of AI--a new information network that threatens to annihilate us. For all that we have accomplished, why are we so self-destructive? Nexus looks through the long lens of human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world. Taking us from the Stone Age, through the canonization of the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism, and the resurgence of populism today, Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He explores how different societies and political systems throughout history have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill. And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence."-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9780593734223
ISBN: 059373422X
ISBN: 9780593736814
ISBN: 0593736818
Physical Description: xxxii, 492 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Edition: First U.S. edition.
Publisher: New York : Random House, [2024]
Copyright: ©2024

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 409-476) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Prologue -- Part I: Human networks. What is information? -- Stories : unlimited connections -- Documents : the bite of the paper tigers -- Errors : the fantasy of infallibility -- Decisions : a brief history of democracy and totalitarianism -- Part II: The inorganic network. The new members : how computers are different from printing presses -- Relentless : the network is always on -- Fallible : the network is often wrong -- Part III: Computer politics. Democracies : can we still hold a conversation? -- Totalitarianism : all power to the algorithms? -- The silicon curtain : global empire or global split? -- Epilogue -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index.