From author of best selling book Sapiens , Yuval Noah Harari brings yet another informative book 21 lessons for 21st century which talks about various problems and solutions of 21st century.
In today’s rapidly changing times we have no idea about the job market 20 years from now. AI and Automation may play a bigger role than humans and humans may be limited to few creative and thinking roles.
It’s not the first time humans are replaced by machines, in fact from industrial revolution till today machines have replaced humans in physical tasks as we can see in assembly lines and any automation hereafter humans may get replaced from mundane cognitive roles like writing email, forwarding messages etc.
Humans take decision based on knowledge and experience. Computers in connected networks can get any amount of information and AI can learn from the experience of all human interactions. More data which is collected and stored more accurate decisions such AI systems will take. Earlier data was stored in local servers or hard disks but the advent of cloud storage has democratized the data. Corporations are investing heavily on cloud computing and AI.
Humans have achieved phenomenal growth through cooperation. Large number of people worked together day and night to design, build structures around us. Scientists, workers, teachers all have made progress possible by cooperating with each other. Thanks to the internet now computers can also cooperate with each other. In future low level intelligence jobs such as booking, banking, trading, customer care will be replaced by AI. Even if your job is not affected by AI you need to upgrade yourself continuously to stay relevant which will make life stressful.
Large scale unemployment is not good for the economy hence Governments have to build a system for citizens welfare. Either the government can slow down the pace of development to delay mass unemployment or prepare for such a situation through welfare policy in which people can live a life of dignity. Money for such schemes can be arranged by taxing big companies who control data to provide either minimum basic income or minimum basic services. Finland has one such system in which the government gives 560 euros per month to unemployed people.
Joblessness is a real danger in developing countries due to the large population. In the age of consumerism having a large population was an advantage but as the process gets automated there will not be requirement of labour hence there may be large scale unemployment. Governments in these countries have to think about welfare measures too.
Ecological Challenge
Development plans are destabilizing earth’s climate. Many scientists have predicted that the temperature of earth may rise by 2 degrees if we continue our plans of rapid development. This may be debatable but if temperature rise by 2 degrees there may be catastrophic events which may lead to destruction of life and property.
Global warming is a global problem and it can’t be solved by one nation. If Europe decides to reduce emissions but China wants rapid development the effects will be felt all over the globe not only China. People all over the world should force their governments to act against climate change. Governments all over the world must cooperate in a common forum to reverse this change.
Education System
Our education system encourages rote learning as it was developed when information was not available readily, but now everything is available at the press of a button on the internet. Now we are overloaded with information and even fake information. Schools should teach students how to process and filter information. Analytical skills are required to be taught in schools. Ability to deal with change and Learning new things quickly will be required in future. In future humans have to deal with AI, fake news, climate change, rapid changing technology so we need to equip our children with required skills,
Fake News
Liberalism is dominating the modern world in which it is believed that every person has free will. Humans make decisions based on emotions and mental shortcuts. They think in terms of stories hence if anything is repeated again and again in front of them in the form of stories they tend to believe in it.
Politicians and corporations take advantage of this behavior of humans and influence them with fake stories. Media repeats such stories to make people believe in it. Corporations instead of highlighting real details of a product focus on emotional advertising to make people believe in ideas associated with the product. As humans believe in these stories and products they suffer in the long term.
Humans have to make an extra effort to filter fake news. High quality information is not free so humans have to think before consuming any kind of content.
We should focus on selective reading and analyzing it to have better understanding
Terriorism
Terrorists kill only a few people but terrorize many and force governments to take major decisions. Statistically people die in more numbers from diabetes, pollution than terror attacks but still governments allocate more money to fight terrorism than others. After 9/11 US focus on terror increased and it destabilized middle east regions.
In war, the army attacks strategic areas to reduce the capacity of the enemy to fight but terrorists have different agenda, they want to strike terror in the minds of the people hence they attack soft public targets. Governments also increase defense funding to avoid such incidents, the money which could have been used for public welfare.
Only way to fight terrorists is to stop their funding and stop supply of arms to them which is done by secret services. Whenever attacks take place stop giving publicity to such events as their main aim to gain publicity only. Without arms, money and publicity terrorism will stop eventually.
Homo Deus
In the future can humans become super humans or as the author says homo sapiens to Homo Deus ?
Ideologies replacing Religion
In sapiens we have seen Humans developed religion after the agricultural revolution. Nature and Animals became property of humans. Development of Gods reduced the importance of Nature.
In fact religion became a strong force in the life of humans. They began to follow it strictly, even killing each other in case of differences. Every religion has a defined set of beliefs. These beliefs were developed during the mediaeval age when technology was not developed hence humans used to pray for most of the problems. Today due to development of technology most of our problems are solved. Problems like hunger, diseases and war. Basic food is available in almost all countries. All countries are equipped with disaster. Earlier people used to die from disease and think it is god’s wish or black magic but now it is either due to unavailability or non accessibility of cure. Due to the invention of Nuclear Bomb no major war was fought after 1945. Disaster of Hiroshima and Nagasakhi has set an example for countries to stay away from war. Terrorists can only kill a few people in freak incidents but can’t sustain a sustained war against any country.
As technology solves more and more problems the importance of religion will reduce. Many issues of the 21st century have no answer in religion created in the mediaeval century. Issues like homosexuality, Feminism and Designer babies etc.
Future will belong to those who can rise above beliefs of religion and use technology to influence people
How people will form groups without religion.
Ideologies are slowly replacing religion. Ideologies like idealism. Humanism, liberalism, capitalism. Humanism means growth of humanity.
How will humanity prosper ?
By following capitalism.
What is capitalism ?
Creation of capital or services which help people get jobs as well as products to use. Profit is reinvested to create more capital.
Today every country wants economic development. Three basic things required for economic development are Raw material, Energy and Knowledge.
Raw material and energy may be limited at the moment but knowledge is unlimited with humans. Humans will keep doing research and find out new forms of raw material and energy and development will not stop.
Real problem of economic development is ecological destruction and breakdown of social structures .
Government wants to do development to stay in power, corporations want profit and people want better tomorrow, so it is unlikely to apply breaks to plans of economic development. Humans\’ plan of economic development may make earth inhospitable in future.
Liberalism
Every individual is unique and his choices must be respected. Truth is what a person thinks, not what is written in religion; the only limitation is that it should not harm anyone.
Homosexuality is right because two individuals think it is right for them. Even in democracy everyone has the right to vote hence it is assumed everyone has free will to select his/her choices.
But do we really have free will ?
Can we really decide what\’s good and bad for us ?
Our free will depends on the environment in which we grow, important events in life and amount of information available to us.
Our desires are the result of biochemical reactions inside our brain and these can be easily modified by proper stimulation.
Progress for individuals will lead to major developments in biotechnology, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence and create two important scenario :
- Render masses useless
- Power to few rich individuals
20th century people were required to work in factories, fight war and to use products manufactured.
As technology develops humans are becoming irrelevant in factories and in the military.
Nowadays warfare is through drones or cyber attack or bio attack where humans are not required.
Fully automatic machines and robots are slowly replacing more humans from jobs
Humans have feelings and intelligence. The feelings part has not been decoded but the intelligence of humans is decoded and now AI has more of it than humans.
Search for immortality and everlasting youth will lead to technological advancement but these technologies will be controlled by few rich corporations who will dictate terms to governments and the general public.
Like plastic surgery was invented for treating soldiers who were wounded in the battlefield but now it is used in beauty treatments.
Technologies like nanotechnology, inorganic body parts (like one you see in terminator movies) which will develop to cure but eventually lead to commercialization to enhance human capacity but these will be mostly controlled by few rich individuals which will make them super humans aka homo deus.
Data is the next religion
Why do you need religion ?
Mostly to take ethical decisions in life and leave uncontrolled factors in life to higher powers. But what if data can solve your problems of decision making.
As the economy changes from material economy to knowledge economy.
As our experiences, feelings and knowledge gets recorded in social websites and searches it will all be used as collective consciousness to guide humans in future.
What data am I talking about ?
Humans are sharing their experiences and feelings through photos, videos and even reactions and comments. Heart Rate and other parameters are recorded in smart watches and health based apps. Earlier this data was stored in a local computer and only the owner had access to it but now it is stored in a cloud which is available for analysis, this data can be combined, shared and used for analysis to predict and make decisions.
Huge amounts of data is being collected everyday from personal assistant software, social media websites, documents stored in the cloud etc.
This data will be used for decision making in future and will become new religion in which we will trust for all aspects of our life.