translated from Spanish: Yuval Noah Harari, the Futurist philosopher who without using cell phone has become involuntary guru of Silicon Valley

Despite this, this philosopher and Professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has become a sort of guru admired by elites of Silicon Valley.
How it became Silicon Valley “villain” of the United States all began with his book “Sapiens, animal gods”, an ambitious text on the history of humanity, which became a best-seller international after being published in in gles of 2014.
So far have sold more than eight million copies of the work, which has been translated into some 50 languages.
This success came followed by “Homo Deus, brief history of tomorrow”, a book about the future of mankind which has sold over four million copies.
And then published “21 lessons for the twenty-first century”, where analyzes today’s world and made warnings about the challenges of the moment like climate change, the revolution of disruptive technologies or weapons of mass destruction.
Reed Hastings, CEO, Netflix, says that Silicon Valley executives see Harari as the person they would like to be the Harari works have been praised and recommended by Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, founders of Microsoft and Facebook respectively .
These are the five books that Bill Gates recommended read, know any?
And during a recent tour in California to promote his latest book, this 42-year-old intellectual was invited to meet with the members of X, the research division of Alphabet (the parent company of Google), and attended a dinner hosted in his honor by Reed has stings, the CEO of Netflix.
But more that satisfied, Harari is uncomfortable and a bit perplexed with the good reception that has had his work among the leaders of the large technology companies.
Why?
Weakening democracy concern stems from the fact that his books are critical of Silicon Valley, on the grounds that it is weakening democracy with its technologies.
Concerned that influence through their programs and applications to billions of people in the world, technology companies are dropping the idea of citizens that have free will.
Harari believes that humans we are developing in animals that can be hackeadosEn a lecture to packed House at an auditorium in San Francisco, reviewed by The New York Times, Harari said that, as things are going, the political parties could lose its reason of be.
He said that the liberal order is based on fictions as the that “the customer is always right” or the advice “follow your heart”, ideas which, according to him, can fail to be operating in a world in which through artificial intelligence the “hearts” can be manipulated on a massive scale.
“If human beings are animals that can be hacked and if your preferences and opinions do not reflect your free will, why should politics?” wondered also Harari in an article published in September in the British newspaper The Guardian.
Martin Hilbert, guru of Big Data: “democracy is not ready for the digital age and it is being destroyed” in his book “Homo Deus”, this intellectual also refers to the emergence of “data religion”, a future cult around the power of algorithms in a m Undo in which prevails the artificial intelligence and the big data.
but apparently imagine that world isn’t it uncomfortable some of the leaders of the big Silicon Valley companies.
Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, is one of the followers of Hararisegun they told Harari and his editor at the New York Times, during the meeting in Alphabet young employees of the company expressed concern about the possibility that his work was favouring the Constitution of a society that is less free, while senior – in general – they considered that their social effect was positive.
Silicon Valley plan to reinvent the way we live in cities Innecesarios rather than the political implications, the israeli philosopher worried by the possibility that the current technological revolution – with its massive robotic automation – end benefit only a few and derive, in fact, in the creation of a ‘useless’ social class.
Thus, he noted that most of the world’s population is completely dispensable in the task of creating the future that dream in places like Silicon Valley.
We do not all benefit just as advances in Silicon Valley “increasingly you have the feeling that all these elites you even need and is much worse to be irrelevant to be exploited,” told the audience of his recent talk in San Francisco.
“You are completely dispensable,” he added.
In an interview with the Jakarta Post newspaper, however, said that what worries him is not so much that robots leave without work to humans but the consequences of this, because people would be in poverty and lack of economic and political power.
“If we find the way to match the benefits derived from the work of the robots so that everyone could be favored not only a small elite, could then be a very good thing for humanity”, said what makes missing beyond your ideas intellectually provocative, part of the appeal that has the figure of Harari on technological elites is related to your lifestyle.
Professor Ph.d. at Oxford University in 2002, devotes two hours a day meditation – a widespread practice in the Mecca of the technology – and spends two months a year in absolute silence.
Personalities like Mark Zuckerberg recommended books from Harari “Yuval is the anti Silicon Valley. Do not use cell phone and spend much time in contemplation, disconnected from the network. We see him as the person who we would like to be,”he wrote on the Reed Hastings, CEO, Netflix.
Harari is a vegetarian and lives with her husband in a moshav a type of israeli rural community which operates as a cooperative.
It is considered that his homosexuality has favored his work allow him to observe the dominant culture in their own society with greater distance.
And take that distance lets you search for answers to the questions necessary to respond at this time.
What is the relationship between history and biology? or what are the ethical questions arising from scientific and technological advances of the 21st century?, are some of the issues that devotes their research efforts in these moments.
Harari spends two months a year in absolute silencioPero, despite all the warnings that formula on the influence taking technological developments in society, Harari does not believe in the possibility or the need to stop these advances.
“People not should focus on the question of how to stop the progress of the technology because it is impossible”, he said in a recent interview with the British newspaper The Guardian.
“Instead, the question should be what is the type of use that can be given to this new technology. And here you still have enough power to influence the direction that we are taking,”said.

Original source in Spanish

Related Posts

Add Comment