Having worked in the Information Technology industry for over a decade, the last few years I started looking into the nature of Information itself. With growing political polarisation, rampant disinformation, and us entering the AI era I thought it would be good to start with some history of our relationship with information. How has it affected societies and governments as it evolved? Can we still have a conversation and how? Yuval Noah Harrari seemed to be asking the same questions in 📖 Nexus: Information Networks from Stone Age to AI, so I couldn’t miss it.

Immediately, it hooked me with a framework to think about truth, facts, reality and information (something I encountered in Walter Lipmann’s Public Opinion, but more on that separately). It reinforced the importance of definitions and highlighted the ever-present challenge of alignment - whether it’s during Napoleon times or now. Setting goals, interpreting them and disseminating instructions has always been a challenge, mostly between people, but now also with a new member - an autonomous agent.

The book is part history, part projection. It grounds conceptual discussions with rich historical examples, like the role of the printing press in witch hunts, the evolution of religious texts, and how modern networks can both amplify truth and fuel atrocities like the Rohingya genocide.

One of the main takeaways for me was the idea of fallibility and the necessity for self-correcting mechanisms. Whether it’s the Bible, an AI agent, or a government, accepting anything as something that cannot make mistakes usually ends up in disasters. The tools we make and the systems we build can act at the speed of light, so it’s critical that we are able to evolve them.

The book didn’t answer all my questions, but it definitely gave me some food for thought. Curious how others are thinking about this. Have you read Nexus or come across other works that shaped your view of information?

Planning to review “The Men Who Killed The News” next.