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fiorellareads's review against another edition
4.0
Great philosophical read about the future of humanity.
bruinuclafan's review against another edition
4.0
A great follow-up to Sapiens that looks at some possible futures that humans may face, looking back at the whole of human history for context and clues. Some of the book reviews concepts discussed in Sapiens, which was a nice refresher. A lot of the book is dedicated to discussing algorithms and their use in daily life (and possible future uses). It's interesting and thought provoking. He uses a hypothetical involving Microsoft's Cortana that is particularly disturbing.
Overall, I enjoyed the book, and appreciate that he is asking big questions about our future without supposing to know the answers. The book does not present a rosy outlook on the future, though, so be warned.
Overall, I enjoyed the book, and appreciate that he is asking big questions about our future without supposing to know the answers. The book does not present a rosy outlook on the future, though, so be warned.
sidekicksam's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
4.25
A re-read on audio, and the main messages of the book still hold up, despite things having changed so significantly after the first time reading it in 2018. The author bases his predictions for the future of humanity on his historical knowledge and contexts, and I found the book to be thought-provoking once again.
In historical times, humans put a lot of faith in gods and deities, but in the future, the author predicts man to take the place of the god. Humanism will expand and humans will continue to look for ways of becoming immortal. But at the same time, we're making ourselves redundant by developing machines and technology to take over our work - our added value as humans is slowly receding.
These topics are so interesting to think about, and reading it again after years of Covid and developments in the world of AI and ML, it is remarkable that the book is becoming more relevant. I'm curious how I'll feel about it in ten years, or twenty.
In historical times, humans put a lot of faith in gods and deities, but in the future, the author predicts man to take the place of the god. Humanism will expand and humans will continue to look for ways of becoming immortal. But at the same time, we're making ourselves redundant by developing machines and technology to take over our work - our added value as humans is slowly receding.
These topics are so interesting to think about, and reading it again after years of Covid and developments in the world of AI and ML, it is remarkable that the book is becoming more relevant. I'm curious how I'll feel about it in ten years, or twenty.
djfortman's review against another edition
2.0
Harari takes on the difficult task of painting a picture of the future of humanity. I read and greatly enjoyed Sapiens, but I feel like Harari bites off a little more than he can chew in this one. Harari again does a good job of discussing overarching historical themes in human development, but he too often injects unnecessary anecdotes into his writing here. While the outlook for the future is meant to be provocative, I think his lack of intimate familiarity with the state-of-the-art science makes some of the predictions a little questionable. Overall, a little long-winded for my taste, and I think I could have lived without reading Home Deus.
dantad's review against another edition
5.0
This book is incredible - will be coming back to this book a lot. Can’t reccomend enough
smcrain's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.25
Didn't like this one as much as Sapiens. Also a lot has happened since this work was published that make this one feel a little outdated already.
cheesecakelova's review against another edition
4.0
I've enjoyed this book even though I disagree with Prof. Harari in lots of points, for example the central equation of basically everything with algorithms. Furthermore, some of Harari's projections into the future of humankind rely heavily on questionable models of biology, psychology, sociology, economy, history, and computer science. I'm a layman in all but one of these domains, but even to me his models seem over-simplistic.
Anyway, it was fun to read and think about the future outside of the scifi genre.
Anyway, it was fun to read and think about the future outside of the scifi genre.
user_3131695191912's review against another edition
First off, I don't like reading books in dutch. Furthermore, the book feels really speculative and slow-going. I'm not interested enough in anthropology to continue reading.
kklecornu's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
I wanted to rate this higher but it mostly felt like droning background noise (my fault for listening on audiobook - maybe I would have felt more engaged in the text if reading print.) Still, there were some interesting questions about the current world in which humans have taken the place of gods, and a future world in which algorithms will take the place of humans.