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Increasingly, our decisions will be made by the algorithms that surround us. Whenever there is a big dilemma, you just ask Google what to do. And what kind of life is that?
Yuval Noah Harari
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes the growing influence of algorithms and technology on our decision-making process.

Yuval Noah Harari's quote raises concerns about our reliance on algorithms and digital platforms like Google for making important life choices. He questions the quality of life and autonomy we experience when our decisions are increasingly dictated by technology, suggesting that this trend may lead to a loss of individuality and critical thinking.

Themes

AlgorithmsDecision MakingTechnologyRelianceAutonomy

In practice

Example use cases

In a tech conference discussing the influence of algorithms on daily life.

More from Yuval Noah Harari

We control the world basically because we are the only animals that can cooperate flexibly in very large numbers. And if you examine any large-scale human cooperation, you will always find that it is based on some fiction like the nation, like money, like human rights.
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I titled the book 'Homo Deus' because we really are becoming gods in the most literal sense possible. We are acquiring abilities that have always been thought to be divine abilities - in particular, the ability to create life. And we can do with that whatever we want.
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The notion of superhumans is using bioengineering and artificial intelligence to upgrade human abilities. If they use the power to change themselves, to change their own minds, their own desires, then we have no idea what they will want to do.
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Techno-humanism aims to amplify the power of humans, creating cyborgs and connecting humans to computers, but it still sees human interests and desires as the highest authority in the universe.
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The most important question in 21st-century economics may well be, 'What should we do with all the superfluous people, once we have highly intelligent non-conscious algorithms that can do almost everything better than humans?'
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Take Google Maps or Waze. On the one hand, they amplify human ability - you are able to reach your destination faster and more easily. But at the same time, you are shifting the authority to the algorithm and losing your ability to find your own way.
Yuval Noah HarariRead

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