21 Lessons for the 21st Century

by Yuval Noah Harari

The problem with such national and municipal schemes, however, is that the main victims of automation may not live in Finland, Ontario, Livorno, or Amsterdam.

Uneven distribution of income between countries.

If AI and 3-D printers indeed take over from the Bangladeshis and Bangalorians, the revenues that previously flowed to South Asia will now fill the coffers of a few tech giants in California.

Or can it be China? What role patriotism and protectionism will play in this setting? Is technology immune from border controls? (See ban on Huawei). If spread of AI and robotics will replace employment by country not by class, is protectionism the right / ultimate thing to do?

Existing (and collapsing) global political set up not sufficient to cope with the divide. Another revolution from the poor? Then don’t even have a chance to win...

Homo sapiens is just not built for satisfaction.

Don’t you have algorithm and can customize everything based on needs and preference? Why basic has to be the same thing for everyone? This is so old school. Plus, even today there is huge inequality, but there is a thousand ways to manipulate it so people don’t feel it or blame it. Isn’t manipulation of Homo sapiens’s mind easy to do?

Perhaps the most successful experiment so far in how to live a contented life in a post-work world has been conducted in Israel. There, about 50 percent of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men never work. They dedicate their lives to studying holy scriptures and performing religious rituals.

Exactly! When the world is taken care by the machine, everything is abundant, isn’t Homo sapiens ready to do things with more death, like philosophy? Isn’t humanity a luxury more than anything?