Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari - Book Summary

Book Summary of Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

About Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow By Yuval Noah Harari

Since the beginning of history, humanity has considered itself to be more special than the rest of the world. In many ways, the last few centuries of technological progress have only cemented our dominance over everything else. Yet, the future of humanity is anything but clear. Because humans have essentially tackled the long enduring problems of hunger, global plagues and war, science and technological interest will soon need to focus on new challenges. And based on the predictions of author Yuval Noah Harari, that future won’t look anything like the world we know today.

Harari actually wrote Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow as a sequel to his earlier book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humanity. After looking at the traits that made humans stand out in the first place (which he did with Sapiens), Harari now turns his attention to the future and the highly likely attempts to upgrade humans into gods. What might seem impossible today (immortality, complete control over moods, and happiness) might become far more plausible in the coming decades. The pace of technology and the increasing prevalence of immersive data systems like Google is changing the way that humans are relating with the world, and challenging long held beliefs about the value of humans in the first place.

Will all human jobs soon be replaced by robots? Will the world be run by an elite class of upgraded super-humans? And what will we—as human beings—do if this happens? By looking through the course of history to predict future trends, these are the questions that Harari strives to answer.

Here’s what you’ll learn about in this summary:

- The three challenges that humanity has been fighting against since the beginning of time, and the likely challenges that will begin to fill our time instead.

- The reasons why humans are more like machines than the special beings with souls and free will that we believe we are.

- What it will mean for the importance of individual humans as technology and data systems continue to take over daily life.

- What will come after humanism, and what it might mean for human society.

- And much, much more...