In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari warns that data religion could threaten humanism, but he argues that the dominance of non-organic algorithms over humans doesn’t necessarily lead to negative consequences, and that it has the potential to strengthen the human ego.
Yuval Noah Harari concludes the book with a discussion of data religion in his book Homo Deus. According to Datacology, as technology advances, the performance of non-organic algorithms will surpass that of organic algorithms. The argument is that non-organic algorithms will become the most capable data processing systems and will ultimately dominate and control humans. Yuval Noah Harari warns that the datacracy has the potential to threaten and destroy humanism and emphasizes that it is one of the greatest challenges we will face. If non-human algorithms take control, he says, human freedom and will will be undermined.
However, I don’t think the dominance of non-organic algorithms over humans will necessarily lead to dire consequences. On the contrary, I believe there is a possibility that the dominance of non-organic algorithms could lead to positive changes in human society. Or, to put it more bluntly, I see no reason to believe that the dominance of non-organic algorithms over humans is necessarily bad. I will argue this claim from both a practical and philosophical perspective.
First, from a practical standpoint, organic and non-organic algorithms have fundamentally different purposes. In the case of organic algorithms, the primary purpose is to sustain life and pass on genes to the next generation. The resources needed to sustain life are finite, and when they are obtained, happiness is experienced, and when they are not, pain is experienced. In this process, organic algorithms compete fiercely with each other for resources, and only those who survive this competition will pass on their genes to the next generation through natural selection. Only the genes that are selected by nature will survive and evolve the species, while those that are not selected will gradually die out and become extinct. This competition for survival is an essential feature of organic algorithms, and it is how evolution and biodiversity are maintained.
In contrast, in non-organic algorithms, survival is not the goal. Their sole purpose is to carry out human commands. Before the advent of self-learning techniques like machine learning, non-organic algorithms were simply tools that performed calculations on human commands. As technology has evolved, these computational capabilities have improved by leaps and bounds, and now we have non-organic algorithms that are capable of self-learning. This has given non-organic algorithms the ability to solve problems autonomously and come up with new solutions.
However, despite these changes, non-organic algorithms are fundamentally different from organic algorithms. They don’t have biological needs like survival or reproduction, so they don’t need to feel pain. They also don’t seek happiness, so they don’t need to inflict pain on other algorithms. In this sense, even if a situation were to arise where non-organic algorithms dominate humans, it would be fundamentally different from the way organic algorithms dominate humans and other animals.
Here’s another example. Yuval Noah Harari argues that human dominance over other animals has led to the enrichment of humans and the suffering of other animals. However, the situation with non-organic algorithms dominating humans is likely to play out differently. Since non-organic algorithms don’t need to sacrifice other beings to survive, they have no incentive to inflict suffering on humans. So even if non-organic algorithms do dominate humans, it may look very different from the domination of organic algorithms.
Of course, one could argue against this. It is possible that non-organic algorithms could harm humans in the process of carrying out human commands. Yuval Noah Harari, for example, mentions the possibility that a computer that calculates the circumference of the Earth could harm humans in order to do so. He has a point. There is always the possibility that a non-organic algorithm could misinterpret a human command or behave differently than a human would expect. However, these issues can be mitigated by improving the design of non-organic algorithms and enforcing ethical guidelines. For example, we can set clear ethical standards for how we want our algorithms to behave in order to avoid harming humans, and only select algorithms that meet those standards. By repeating this process, we can create the ideal algorithm that does not harm humans.
Next, from a philosophical perspective, the dominance of non-organic algorithms can actually strengthen the human ego. Yuval Noah Harari warns that non-organic algorithms will come to know us better than we know ourselves, and that we will eventually come to rely on their advice. However, this can also be interpreted paradoxically to mean that non-organic algorithms will help us better understand our own ego. If non-organic algorithms can get deeper into the human psyche, it will be a process that will help humans better understand themselves and strengthen their sense of self.
For example, suppose a teenager was struggling with his or her identity, and then attended a talk on self-identity and discovered his or her purpose in life. In this case, the speaker played a role in helping the teenager understand himself or herself, which contributed to strengthening the teenager’s sense of self. Similarly, as non-organic algorithms gain a better understanding of humans, humans will be able to recognize themselves more clearly and strengthen their identity.
Of course, there are counterarguments to these claims. There is a concern that if non-organic algorithms are able to provide better advice than humans, humans will become increasingly dependent on them and eventually lose their sense of self. However, this can happen even in the absence of non-organic algorithms. Humans often rely on the advice of authority figures or experts, sometimes with positive and sometimes with negative consequences. The important thing is that humans don’t blindly follow the advice of non-organic algorithms, but rather maintain critical thinking and develop the ability to absorb information.
No matter what we do, technology will advance, and we will be bombarded with information and forced to make choices. Our job is not to suppress technology, but to learn how to use it properly through critical thinking. If the dominance of non-organic algorithms is inevitable, we need to find ways to strengthen our sense of self, not lose it.
