Wanderers
4 stars
Excellent example of weaving multiple characters into a climax
16.2 x 4.3 x 24.1 cm, 528 pages
English language
Published Jan. 1, 2024 by Fern Press.
Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
5 stars
(6 reviews)
The story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Sapiens
Stories brought us together.
Books spread our ideas – and our mythologies.
The internet promised infinite knowledge.
The algorithm learned our secrets – and then turned us against each other.
What will AI do?
NEXUS is the thrilling account of how we arrived at this moment, and the urgent choices we must now make to survive – and to thrive.
Harari's Best, Most Important Work So Far
5 stars
Yuval Noah Harari starts recounting the history of information networks. This takes him almost 200 pages before arriving at AI and the “computer network,” which, I think, are the most interesting topics he discusses. It took me a long time to go over the first 200 pages—even considering they might very well be a summary of “Sapiens” and “Homo Deus”—and a couple of days to cover the remaining 200 pages. What I’m trying to say is that, if you have patience and give the book a chance, it eventually becomes a page-turner, a brilliant account of recent history, of why AI might not be all fun and games, and of how we, humans, are entirely responsible for this “alien” technology being the next version of infornation networks—not the last.
Information as foundation
5 stars
This was way more comprehensive and interesting than I expected.
Regardless of how AI actually goes, it's clear that it is going to have an immense impact on our civilisation.
I guess I'd never deeply thought into the implications for us when information is more important than currency, and that your store of information impacts your power (either on the world stage or in business) differently than classical economical power.
I liked the example of how a local restaurant can compete with McDonalds by cooking quality food or providing a good service. A local/small company cannot ever compete with the likes of Google because of the proportion of the world's information that goes through them.
I enjoyed the broad historical approach of this book and its discussion of mythology and bureaucracy. Definitely left me with a bit of a feeling of AI being a bit of a pandora's box - …
This was way more comprehensive and interesting than I expected.
Regardless of how AI actually goes, it's clear that it is going to have an immense impact on our civilisation.
I guess I'd never deeply thought into the implications for us when information is more important than currency, and that your store of information impacts your power (either on the world stage or in business) differently than classical economical power.
I liked the example of how a local restaurant can compete with McDonalds by cooking quality food or providing a good service. A local/small company cannot ever compete with the likes of Google because of the proportion of the world's information that goes through them.
I enjoyed the broad historical approach of this book and its discussion of mythology and bureaucracy. Definitely left me with a bit of a feeling of AI being a bit of a pandora's box - once true AI is out there interacting with other AIs, I'm not sure we'll have much to say on anything...
Good Insights
4 stars
Good insights into information networks from a historical perspective and how they might evolve in the future. I was missing a bit the role and impact open source AI might have. Otherwise, great read!
