Homo Deus is a book about the future -- let me rephrase -- about the futures. Standing under the signpost of 2016, if you are like most of my friends, you are also feeling pretty grim about the immediate future. A rapid perusal of the NYT's headlines of the day reveals a vast range of issues to worry about. However, in his latest book, Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens, points his finger at the more remote horizon: not the next year, not even the next decades, we are talking about a nebulous timeline which might just exceed the lifespan of those living today. Homo Deus foresees three interconnected driving forces that will shape our (possibly) human future:

The emergence of an all-encompassing scientific dogma that perceives the universe as information flows;
The emergence of (artificial) intelligence which is decoupled from consciousness;
The emerging superiority of intelligent but non-conscious algorithms which know us better than ourselves.

Harari narrates in the first two thirds of his book Homo Sapiens' rise to dominance on planet Earth. ¹ He attributes the success of our species, not to the use of tools and intelligence, but to our ability to cooperate with flexibility in large numbers. Such flexible cooperation is subsequently dependent on the intersubjective realm that we have woven through languages and other symbols. Intersubjective entities, such as money, gods, and nations, exist only as so far as people decide to believe in them. They are ingenious mixtures of facts and fiction with self-reinforcing properties, that individuals sometimes serve in detriment of their own well-being, but advancing the great project that is "humanity", nevertheless. In our world today, the difference between a subjective being and an inter-subjective one is blurred: nations and corporations can own property, employ people, and wage wars, as individuals can. However, the key telling difference, Harari tells us, is that inter-subjective entities have no consciousness: they cannot suffer. ²

Human activity, predominantly the global economic system, is now the prime driver of change in the Earth System — the sum of our planet's interacting physical, chemical, biological and human processes. ↩
This is perhaps a fact that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs is acquainted with intimately. After all, officials never proclaim that China's feelings have been hurt by this or that foreign insensitiveness; instead, what have been hurt are the feelings of the Chinese people. ↩

Although much of our world is controlled by inter-subjective entities, the ultimate guidance for decision making, on the other hand, has gradually moved to be placed within the subjective realm. The oracles of Ancient Babylon sought meanings and signs in the night sky; the priests of the Abrahamic religions sought meanings and signs in the holy scriptures; scientists and economists, our modern-day oracles and priests, when making important life decisions, find meanings and signs in their own emotions. ² This new "religion" that provides behaviour heuristics for us to navigate life's problems is humanism.

The subtle way in which collective decisions are framed as objective factual choices, to be optimized by a few based on obscure rules, rather than subjective value choices, this depoliticisation of social issues by technical jargon, merits its own blog post. ↩

Harari differentiates between three branches of humanisms. After surviving in the shadow from 1914 to the late 1970s, the orthodox school of liberalism now reigns supreme, promoting the package of individualism, human rights, democracy, and free market. Its competitors, socialist humanism and evolutionary humanism have lost the race as viable alternative models for running the world. ³ Liberalism's success is attributed to a better fit to the demand of the ages: decentralized decision making in the form of democracies and markets are better at making more effective choices than centralized models. However, the reign of liberalism is by no means inevitable: liberalism's competitive advantage to other techno-religions of modernity is a better understanding of evolving technological reality during the post-war years; as the most recent humanist projects spur new forms of technology, liberalism's role as the default package of beliefs will be challenged by new techno-religions that better address emerging economic and moral dilemma.

The exception is China, a promising breeding ground for new techno-religions. ↩

In the last third of the book, Harari gets into the heart of the matter: our possible futures (beyond humanism). He carefully hedges the claims that he makes about these possible futures. He insists that Homo Deus, the book, is not meant as a prediction of the future. Because, he is fully aware that the knowledge of a possible future is enough to alter that very future. ⁴ Instead, this book is meant as a retelling of history, frequently performed with movement building. A call for the imagining of alternative futures.

Psychohistory founder Hari Seldon, anyone? ↩

For Harari, the technologies with the greatest potential to subvert humanism are biotechnology and computer algorithms. Both technologies challenge our definition of what is human. Like any other religion, the beliefs of humanism have a factual claim and a normative claim:

Each human being is a unique individual possessing a unique voice with free will. Through free choices, human beings compose unique experiences which become the ultimate source of meaning and authority in our atheist world.
Given the uniqueness of such free will, individual freedom should be given the greatest importance among our values.

Hariri argues that new advances in biological sciences shatter the first factual belief.

First, the human "self", instead of being the ultimate source of wonder, from which free choices flow, is more accurately described as a conduit, through which deterministic and random inputs are translated into outputs. Yes, we do have human desires that we pursue freely; however, we are not free in choosing our desires. Although we would like to be masters of our own fates, our inability to fully grasp what happens "under the hood" in our day-to-day lives enslave us to the demands of ancient genes and memes. As our technology continues to advance, it will become possible for human desires and needs to be directly manipulated and programmed (Some would argue that our consumerist society has already succeeded in doing so).

Secondly, there is no true " individual". Our bodily envelope, an easy boundary used for demarcation, contains multitudes. Anyone who has experienced inner conflicts has first-hand knowledge of our many selves: the rational, the intuitive, the depraved, the saint. But now, we have experimental evidence of how these selves, notably the experiencing self and the narrating self, perceives and acts differently. We are “dividuals”.

If there is no true free will or true individual, what will happen to humanism, which holds individual free will as sacred? Harari believes that new information does not automatically shape new behaviour norms. Instead, practical implications flowing from the use of new technologies reshape social norms. Therefore, the two futures that Harari paints are extrapolations of our current society, propelled by humanist beliefs to develop superhuman technology. These same technologies, once deployed, enable the development of new techno-religions that may ultimately replace humanism.

"Techno-humanism"

boThe first possible techno-religion, the more timid of the two, is an altered version of humanism. Humanity's position at the apex of creation is maintained. However, in this future, the pursuit of immortality and everlasting happiness, the human body and consciousness will become open to upgrades via genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and brain-computer interfaces. However, for humanism, the (re)design of humans will amount to pulling out the rug under one's feet. Given the foundation of the humanist project rests upon the human will, once the human will becomes another designer project, the footing upon which all human pursuits rest vanishes. Furthermore, the upgrading of human beings will create a new elite of superhumans, the namesake of this book, who will enjoy physical and cognitive abilities beyond our current reach. Inequality, in addition to being reinforced financially and socially, will also be reinforced biologically, perhaps leading to the splitting of our species.

"Dataism"

The second possible techno-religion is a more radical departure from the tenets of humanism. What is sacred is no longer our bodily envelop; what takes its place in the Pantheon is information. Dataists believe that the universe consists of data flows, and the value of any phenomenon is determined by its contribution to data processing. Such a worldview, born at the confluence of biology and computer science, collapsing the organic and inorganic realm, appears to be a serious contender to be the next grand unifying theory. The first principle of dataism is freedom of information, because the opposite, the blocking of data flow, is the greatest sin. This is the most significant new value introduced since liberté, égalité, fraternité. Therefore, a Dataist ought to maximise data flow by increasing connectivity, producing and consuming more information, to be merged into the great web of all things. In day-to-day life, this means that the Dataist life style involves increasing one’s own data processing capacity through the aid of external algorithms such as automated time logs and biometric monitors. Given Dataism holds no attachment to the sanctity of humanity, thus if in the future, non-organic algorithms were to surpass human beings as information processors, a true Dataist should welcome this change as a passing of baton in the relay race toward ever increasing connectivity.

The technological trends for both techno-religions overlap. The key differentiating element is the purpose of technological development: how firmly will Homo Sapiens anchor ourselves at the centre of the “meaningful” universe?

Let's return to the three driving forces that we have introduced at the beginning of this review:

The emergence of an all-encompassing scientific dogma that perceives the universe as information flows;
The emergence of (artificial) intelligence which is decoupled from consciousness;
The emerging superiority of intelligent but non-conscious algorithms which know us better than ourselves, which, according to the new scientific dogma, are but bio-mechanic algorithms.

Although Harari refrains from leaning toward one future over another, the three driving forces that he highlights at the end of Homo Deus, if extrapolated into the future, paint a world which is more Dataist than Techno-Humanist, where an eventual eclipse of consciousness by non-conscious intelligence takes place, in service of “the web of all things”. This is a stance which has been growing on me. Such a vision, which others might find bleak and meaningless, appeal to my inner aesthete. After all, doesn’t it require more arrogance on one’s part to believe that humanity, the group that we happen to belong to, is uniquely positioned in the Universe? To draw sharp boundaries between humans and other entities? Isn’t human exceptionalism more alienating than its opposite?

The most important thing that I take away from Homo Deus is a new understanding of “religions” that moves beyond “God”, the ability to perceive faith-based social organising principles as continuously evolving, and his christening of Dataism, a faith which I did not know of, but is already pledging allegiance to through my work and my life, to which the name and mission of this blog testifies. Since finishing the book, I have already told many of my friends, half-jokingly, that what I really wanted to be is a great prophet of Dataism. It is a powerful story based on which people with similar affinity can organize and build. Or, for those with opposing affinity to resist.

Within the game, human reactions to this discovery fall into two opposing factions: the Enlightened fight believing their actions will uplift humanity and bring about the next chapter in human evolution, whereas the Resistance believes that it is protecting humanity from Shaper ingression and preserving humanity's freedom.

Ingress (video game), Wikipedia

The old tribal allegiances are becoming redundant, and the main moral and intellectual divisions are within parties rather than between them. […] The old divide was between left and right. The new divide is between winners and losers from globalisation and technology.

The divide between globalisation’s winners and losers, Amol Rajan

To tell such an ambitious tale in a limited number of pages inevitably invites scrutiny. The most obvious being the strength of the three driving forces:

Is a data-based world view really becoming the new scientific dogma?
Is consciousness truly a property that cannot be recreated in inorganic beings?
In what ways are the intelligent algorithms becoming better than us at knowing ourselves?

But, above all, the naming of the beast that is Dataism is a forewarning as much as an oracle. Although I enjoy entertaining the idea of being a Dataist, I am also reminded of a question that I answered many years ago.

What would I risk my life for?

Not for any abstract ideas, for how things might be, but for particular people. Remember that a person is always more important than an idea.

Dataism is the newest intersubjective dream that we are weaving; as of yet, it has no capacity to suffer.