21 Lessons for the 21st Century

by Yuval Noah Harari

To understand the nature of this technological challenge, perhaps it would be best to start with the job market. Since 2015 I have been traveling around the world talking with government officials, businesspeople, social activists, and schoolkids about the human predicament. Whenever they become impatient or bored by all the talk of artificial intelligence, Big Data algorithms, and bioengineering, I usually need to mention just one magic word to snap them back to attention: jobs. The technological revolution might soon push billions of humans out of the job market and create a massive new “useless class,” leading to social and political upheavals that no existing ideology knows how to handle. All the talk about technology and ideology might sound very abstract and remote, but the very real prospect of mass unemployment—or personal unemployment—leaves nobody indifferent.