The well -known Israeli thinker/historian, author of Sapiens and several other books, in this book delves into the nature of information networks and exchanges. But even after twelve pages of pedantic discussion, he seems to abandon any rigid definition of ‘information’ and any possible relationship to reality or truth, words which to him seem to have equally opaque meanings.
The text is supplemented with 163 pages of notes and a 37 page index.
The author dwells at length with self-correcting information systems. “… the scientific revolution was launched by the discovery of ignorance.”
“As an information technology, the self-correcting mechanism is the polar opposite of the holy book. The holy book is supposed to be infallible.”
“Allowing the government to search for the truth is like appointing a fox to supervise the chicken coup.”
He becomes very pessimistic about the existential threat of uncontrolled and non self-correcting AI and coins the term the Silicon Curtain to detail the emerging fight between the U.S. and China over its development.
For me, this dry humourless book contains superb insights in some areas such as when discussing the pope’s apologies for people but not for the church itself which still maintains infallibility, though made up of people. In other areas it became pedantic and speculative, particularly when addressing AI. Not as good as Sapiens, but still insightful.
3.5/5
Thanks, Alan.
The Passionate Reader 
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