Big Think

Yuval Noah Harari on AI: A non-human billionaire with an agenda


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**"Will AI Replace Human Relationships? Yuval Harari’s Shocking Take"**

What if AI understands you *better* than your closest friends? Imagine a world where machines grasp your emotions with laser precision—while humans remain frustratingly out of sync. Historian and futurist Yuval Noah Harari dives into this chilling possibility, exploring how AI could redefine love, power, and even democracy itself.

From AI-powered corporations earning billions to the unsettling prospect of an AI president, Harari unpacks a future that feels eerily close. But amidst the warnings, there’s hope—AI could also revolutionize healthcare, education, and self-awareness. The real danger? We’re racing ahead without brakes.

So, will AI become our greatest ally or our biggest mistake? Harari leaves us with a haunting question: Are we thinking fast enough to control the future we’re creating?

Tune in for a conversation that will change how you see AI forever.

“What happens if you incorporate an AI? It's now a legal person, and it can make decisions by itself. So you start having legal persons in the U.S., which are not human, and in many ways are more intelligent than us.”

What are some arguments for and against a future where humans only have relationships with AI, and not with humans? AI is rapidly becoming better at understanding human feelings and emotions and developing intimate relationships with us, says historian and the best-selling author of 'Sapiens' @YuvalNoahHarari, in conversation with journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin ‪@92NY‬. Often our peers, friends, and family aren’t able to understand or hold space for our feelings, partly because they are so preoccupied with their own. But AI is able to dedicate immense amounts of time to analyze and decipher our moods. Rather than the cold, mechanical, unfeeling robots depicted in science fiction, the AI would be nearly the complete opposite. This presents a future where AI will be so good at understanding us and reacting in a way calibrated to an individual’s personality at this particular moment that we may become disappointed with our fellow humans who don’t have this same capacity. But this invites a host of important questions to ask now: Will AI develop their own emotions? Will we start to treat them as conscious beings? Will we grant them legal status? Will we allow them to earn money? Invest it? Make billions? Lobby for politicians? Become our next president?

About Yuval Noah Harari:Prof. Yuval Noah Harari is a historian, philosopher, and the bestselling author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, the series Sapiens: A Graphic History and Unstoppable Us, and Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. His books have sold over 45 Million copies in 65 languages, and he is considered one of the world’s most influential public intellectuals today.

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