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The seer of Silicon Valley: Yuval Noah Harari

In his bestselling book Sapiens, the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari charted the rise of man. Now he reveals why technology will destroy our future if we don’t act fast

The Sunday Times
PORTRAIT BY CHARLIE SURBEY. DIGITAL MANIPULATION BY HITANDRUN

We are living through a new age of instability. The pace of our lives, the pace of change, the introduction of new technologies — augmented reality, virtual reality, wearable technology, artificial intelligence — is bewildering at best. To many it is deeply unsettling.

Power has shifted from traditional institutions to elaborate Silicon Valley campuses in north California. Google’s inanimate algorithm has more impact on the success or failure of a modern business than any industrial strategy cooked up in Westminster. Some say this is just the beginning, that we are weaving unthinkingly towards the singularity, the moment when machines become more intelligent than us, with only a few tech visionaries having any sort of plan for where we might be headed.

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