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Yuval Harari’s Lessons for 21st Century Engineers: A Short Review of 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (Penguin Random House, 2018)

PAUL DIDUCH | HERBST TEACHING FACULTY

Yuval Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is not a great book. All told, it is a decidedly mixed read. What Harari does well is to make some very useful points about our short term technological future, points that are especially helpful for students of applied science because, well, Harari is not an optimist. This may sound strange, but I think that for many who work closely with technology or even for those who are simply impressed by its power and utility, we are actually at risk of slipping into a kind of naïve optimism about technological progress; we tend to believe, in other words that, so long as we focus on our small part, things will work out in the end. Harari is valuable precisely because he challenges his reader to step away from this perspective. I think it is important that we follow his lead, even if it is uncomfortable, because it is an effective way to think clearly about the really big problems that we are likely to face in the next 30 – 50 years. 

The main reason that Harari is not optimistic about our future is because he thinks that technology is on a development track that not only cannot 
be contained by today’s political controls, but is in fact undermining current social and governmental stability. To many of us, this claim might seem unbelievable given that liberal democracy—American democracy—has been the great home and source of so many pioneering technological advances. For many Americans, technology and democracy go hand in hand; they are the twin pillars of American greatness. But on Harari’s view, this fellowship has unfortunately come to an end, a fact that will become increasingly clear in the next 10 – 20 years as developments in information technology and bio-technology grow apace. 

To better frame the specific problem of tech disruption, Harari bids us to consider the following: Advances in both info-tech and bio-tech have already been substantial, but soon their confluence will prove tumultuous. While it is true that the new global information economy has helped to lift millions out of abject poverty, the same conditions have also given rise to the largest wealth and power gap in human history, with the richest 1 percent owning at least half of the world’s wealth. The new money has been generated in no small part by the cultivation and control of information. Part of the problem here, however, is that the same technologies and systems that sustain the information economy also weaken the governmental and social structures we need to ensure that the new technologies are put to good use. To illustrate Harari’s point, let’s look at the example of democracy: where liberal democracy needs the sustaining ideal of equality, technology often generates inequality; it exacerbates the wealth gap, and threatens the old jobs that were once pathways to middle-class stability. Where liberal democracy needs community, technology offers escape to virtual worlds and creates the illusion of connection. Where liberal democracy depends vitally on a knowledgeable electorate, technology helps the spread of misinformation, siloes good information, and foments partisan passions. Where liberal democracy relies on families to socialize future citizens, technology often encourages habits that make family life more difficult. Where liberal democracy believes in the free choice of the individual, technology seeks to hack human psychology, devising new means of extracting data, all to enhance consumer and political manipulation. And where liberal democracy seeks to protect individual freedoms, technology finds new ways to infiltrate and surveille the private sphere, including the regulation and control of free speech, one of liberal democracy’s most important rights.   

Harari’s essential point here is to show the student of technology that she can no longer afford to trust that the current democratic order will supply the resources needed to (a) offer the best guiding regulation of future technological development; and (b), that she can no longer be certain the today’s technologies are actually helping our liberal democracy operate at its best. Harari’s conclusion, therefore, is that our most serious students of technology must begin to broaden their intellectual horizons. The disruptive powers of technology will only increase as our machines become more intelligent, a problem that will add to the already daunting complexity of staving off ecological collapse while managing things like nuclear and autonomous weapons systems. However much we might be tempted to push away Harari’s uncomfortable conclusions, I think we can agree with him that there has never in human history been a greater need for good engineers who can also think beyond the limits of their discipline. The 21st century will belong to those STEM students who can also drink deeply from the humanities and social sciences: the student who can not only solve technical problems but who can clearly situate their efforts in broader social and political contexts—the student who understands, fundamentally, the nature of our collective risks, and who therefore realizes that technological and political development must be thought through together.