Fascinating author talk with Yuval Noah Harari, a military historian and philosopher with a monastic aura whose books have sold over 45 million copies in 65 languages.
His new book, #Nexus, explores information networks, the relationship between information and truth, the threats of #ArtificialIntelligence (AI), etc. The fundamental question is: will the digital information deluge harm democracy by deepening polarization and conflicts and creating a split between humans and machines?
You don't have to agree with all Harari's views, including his #AI utopian/apocalyptic perspective, to admit that his books are some of the most thought-provoking and insightful reads out there since Gladwell's The Tipping Point and Blink.
One important point from today's talk worth sharing: "The key thing to realize about information is that information isn’t truth. Most information in the world is not truth because the truth is very costly, rare, and complicated. If you want to write a true story you need to do a lot of research, it takes time and energy, money. Therefore, more information is not inherently a good thing, and that's why going on a "junk information" diet is key to protecting one's mind from information pumped full of greed, hate and fear, which is addictive to one's mind."
Particularly useful advice in the era of fast, furious, bombastic, and often fake #news, and compulsive #socialmedia scrolling.