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

Includes bibliographical references and index

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 -- The new members : how computers are different from printing presses -- Relentless : the network is always on -- Fallible : the network is often wrong -- Democracies : can we still hold a conversation? -- Totalitarianism : all power to the algorithms? -- The silicon curtain : global empire or global split?

"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