A somewhat scary vison of the future –
“Evolutionary
science teaches us that, in one sense, we are nothing but data-processing
machines: we too are algorithms. By manipulating the data we can exercise
mastery over our fate. The trouble is that other algorithms – the ones that we
have built – can do it far more efficiently than we can. That’s what Harari
means by the “uncoupling” of intelligence and consciousness. The project of
modernity was built on the idea that individual human beings are the source of
meaning as well as power. We are meant to be the ones who decide what happens to
us: as voters, as consumers, as lovers. But that’s not true any more. We are
what gives networks their power: they use our ideas of meaning to determine
what will happen to us.”