# Humanity at its final frontier

Author: Pablo Martín Diez
Original publication: 2024-10-23
Spanish original: https://estrategiabyaleph.substack.com/p/estrategia-56-imperios-digitales
English URL: https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/essays/056/
Status: Published translation

This is a translation of the original Spanish essay published on 23 October 2024. Its claims, examples and forecasts retain that historical context.

English publication: 2026-09-29

*In his latest book, Nexus, Yuval Noah Harari examines AI’s dangers for humanity, focusing on its impact on democracies and the future of our freedom.*

*Translation note: quotations from Harari are translated from the Spanish article. Their original English wording has not been verified.*

At estrategIA, we have been exploring the many facets of the artificial intelligence revolution, often highlighting its transformative potential to improve our societies. Yet analytical rigour also requires us to examine warnings from authoritative voices such as **Yuval Noah Harari**, regarded as one of the great thinkers of our time following the publication of his provocative book *Sapiens*. In his latest work, ***Nexus***, alongside reflecting on information’s role in civilisation, he raises fundamental **challenges** concerning the relationship between **AI and humanity, with particular attention to the impact on democracies.**

First, Harari reminds us that **AI is an agent rather than a tool**: “knives and bombs do not decide for themselves whom to kill. They are instruments without judgement, lacking the intelligence needed to process information and make independent decisions. By contrast, AI can process information on its own and therefore **replace humans in decision-making**.”

## Digital empires, through blood and data

Harari argues that **computers**—he uses this broad term to refer to all synthetic intelligence—**could destabilise** the foundation of any democracy: **public conversation**. These AI agents could undermine democratic processes that depend on collective, deliberative decision-making. **“Democracies die** not only when people lack the freedom to speak,” Harari writes, “but also **when people are unwilling or unable to listen.”** Manipulation of information by AI—which, as we have mentioned before, is more persuasive than most people even though the models are still in their infancy—could erode citizens’ ability to participate in informed public debate.

Linked to this danger is the threat of **surveillance and social scoring** systems. The Israeli historian points out that, if the previous decade was characterised by the battle for attention following the rise of social media, **the 2020s** will witness an even more crucial battle: **the struggle for intimacy**. The threat is not confined to what we do or say. It extends to our most private thoughts and feelings, which could be monitored and manipulated through increasingly sophisticated social surveillance systems.

Contrary to what we might expect, the author of *Nexus* also considers **AI even more challenging for totalitarian or authoritarian regimes**. In these systems, leaders rely on their infallible authority and mechanisms of human control, often based on terror. However, **as AI algorithms begin to make crucial decisions, these regimes could become hostages to their own systems**. Leaders could place too much trust in AI when making decisions of state, potentially destabilising the regime and creating a dangerous dependence, because the checks and balances found in democracies are absent.

Faced with these challenges to democracies and authoritarian systems alike, Harari warns of the risk of what he calls **“digital empires”: power structures in which the concentration of data and computing capacity could create forms of domination never seen before**. But where would that domination lead? How do we align AI with humanity’s goals? **How do we maintain human control over systems that could exceed our capacity to understand them?** How do we prevent their relentless pursuit of their objectives from resulting in catastrophe?

**AI systems programmed to optimise specific objectives can make decisions that are technically efficient yet harmful to society as a whole.** Social media’s optimisation of engagement, even at the cost of promoting disinformation and hate speech, is only the tip of the iceberg. YouTube’s programmers, for example, do not ask the algorithm to prioritise conspiracy or hate videos. Rather, the system itself discovered that the best way to maximise its objective—increasing the number of views—was to show this content.

Perhaps Harari’s most unsettling observation is that we may be approaching the end of history dominated by humans. **“What we are talking about is the possibility that human history may come to an end. Not the end of history, but the end of its human-dominated part** […] What will happen to the course of history when computers play an ever greater role in culture and begin to create stories, laws and religions?”

## Principles for democracies’ survival

In response to these challenges, Harari proposes four fundamental principles to safeguard democracy and maintain human control:

1. **Benevolence:** Data collected about citizens must be used for their benefit, not to manipulate them.
2. **Decentralisation:** Democracy’s “inefficiency” is not a defect but a vital feature of its survival. There should be no single central repository of my data accessible to institutions or companies. For example, an insurance company or a police chief should not have access to my medical records.
3. **Mutuality:** Increased surveillance of citizens must be matched by a proportionate increase in the oversight of governments and corporations.
4. **Adaptability:** Systems must retain the flexibility needed to evolve, correct mistakes and allow people and societies to change.

**The future of democracy will depend on our ability to develop regulatory frameworks that protect fundamental human values while harnessing AI’s transformative potential.** The author concludes by saying that “the decisions we make in the coming years will determine whether summoning this alien intelligence has been a terminal mistake or the beginning of a hopeful new chapter in the evolution of life”. We hope this newsletter helps politicians make better decisions.

Pablo Martín Diez

*Academic Director at Institución Educativa ALEPH*