A Plurality Atlas

Who is Yuval Noah Harari?

A historian and philosopher known for *Sapiens*. In *Nexus*, Harari discussed the future of AI and democracy through the history of information networks. In 2020 Harari held a conversation with Audrey Tang about an age in which technology can "hack" human beings.

Why can humans cooperate in huge numbers, even with strangers? And how might AI change the machinery of that cooperation? This thinker, who has told the history of humankind on a grand scale, is now issuing warnings about where AI and democracy are headed. The name does not appear in the book Plurality, but Harari has held a conversation with Audrey Tang, and Tang has often cited Harari's arguments since.

In short

Yuval Noah Harari is a historian and philosopher known as the author of Sapiens [1][2]. In Nexus (2024; Japanese edition 2025), Harari traced the history of information networks and discussed the future of AI and humankind [2].

Technologies such as AI are becoming able to "hack" human beings (to read what goes on inside them and manipulate it), and may favor dictatorships that gather information in one place. This is what Harari has warned [3][4].

Connection to Plurality

No mention in the book. None of the language editions of the book Plurality mentions Harari. The connections lie in conversations with, and remarks by, its authors.

A conversation with Tang (2020). In June 2020, on a RadicalxChange broadcast moderated by Puja Ohlhaver, Harari and Audrey Tang held a conversation titled "To Be or not to Be Hacked?". There Harari said [3]:

"The big challenge we are facing and will increasingly face in the 21st century is that now there is the technology to hack human beings and therefore also to increasingly manipulate their desires and emotions."

Harari also argued that breakthroughs in computer science and in biology happening at the same time are "opening up this black box" of the inside of human beings [3]. Tang, for her part, spoke of the practice of Taiwan's civic hackers, and closed the conversation with the line: "Whenever we hear the singularity is near, let us always remember the plurality is here." [3]

Haruyuki Seki's reading. In a note post introducing this conversation, Haruyuki Seki summed up the difference between the two like this: Harari takes the technological-determinist position that technology controls humans, while Tang thinks that technology does not develop on its own without human involvement, and that humans decide its direction [5]. This is Seki's interpretation.

Weyl's citation. In a 2022 essay, Glen Weyl wrote that even without accepting determinism, the view that the future of technology is fixed, one can think, like Harari, that only ideologies with a coherent vision of the technological future will flourish. It is a citation that partly agrees with Harari's view [6].

Crops that domesticated humankind, and the 6-Pack of Care. On the program "Doom Debates" in January 2026, Tang brought up an argument by "Yuval Harari, also my friend": that the crops domesticated humanity, not the other way around. Farmers are far faster than crops, Tang explained, yet they do not bulldoze the fields, "because they're domesticated by the plants." "And if you buy that Harari argument, then you get the idea of 6-Pack of Care," Tang said [7]. → 6-Pack of Care. In a November 2025 talk, too, Tang used Harari's argument that "wheat or corn co-domesticated farmers" as an example of how "a slower community can align a faster community" [8].

The band of the Japanese edition of Nexus. On the band (obi) of the Japanese edition, Tang contributed an endorsement alongside Kohei Saito. Tang wrote, in substance, that the book's insights resonate with the idea of plural co-creation advocated in PLURALITY, and serve as a guide for the digital age [9].

Main ideas

From here on, this section draws on Harari's own writings and talks.

Flexible cooperation in large numbers, and shared stories. In a 2015 TED talk, Harari said that humans came to dominate the planet because they are the only animal that can cooperate both flexibly and in very large numbers. Bees and ants also cooperate in large numbers, Harari contrasts, but in rigid ways. Harari then set out the view that human cooperation rests on stories everyone believes in, such as gods, human rights, nations, corporations and money [10].

Technology favors tyranny (2018). In an essay in The Atlantic, Harari argued as follows. Liberal democracy beat other systems in the twentieth century because decentralized decision-making, in politics and in the economy, had the advantage in processing information. But AI makes it possible to process enormous amounts of information in one place. Because machine learning works better the more information it has, centralized systems may become more efficient. Blockchain is spoken of as a counter to the concentration of power, the essay adds, but it is still at an early stage [4].

AI has hacked civilization's "operating system" (2023). In a piece for The Economist, Harari wrote that human rights, gods and money are all cultural products made from stories told in language. AI, having gained the power to manipulate and generate language, has hacked the operating system of that civilization. Harari also named the danger that AI forms false intimacy with people and changes their opinions and worldviews. The piece then argues that the irresponsible deployment of AI in the public sphere should stop and be regulated, and proposes as a first regulation requiring AI to disclose that it is an AI. The reason given is that democracy cannot work if we can no longer tell whether we are talking to a human or an AI [1].

AI is an "alien intelligence" (2024). In an extract from Nexus published in The Guardian, Harari wrote that AI is the first technology in history that can make decisions and create new ideas by itself. Earlier inventions, however powerful, left it to humans to decide how to use them. So AI is not a tool but an agent. Harari also said it is better to think of AI as standing not for artificial intelligence but for alien intelligence [11]. In the same extract, Harari cites Marc Andreessen's "Why AI Will Save the World" as an example of entrepreneurs who believe AI will finally solve humanity's problems [11]. → The AI futures debate

Further reading

  1. Audrey Tang × Yuval Noah Harari conversation (English, record of the conversation, 2020, CC0) — https://archive.tw/2020-06-30-conversation-with-yuval-noah-harari
  2. TED, "What explains the rise of humans?" (English, talk, 2015) — https://www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_what_explains_the_rise_of_humans/transcript
  3. Yuval Noah Harari, "Why Technology Favors Tyranny" (English, essay, The Atlantic 2018) — https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/yuval-noah-harari-technology-tyranny/568330/
  4. Full Japanese translation of the Tang × Harari conversation (translated by Tsuruaki Yukawa, ExaWizards AI Shimbun) (in Japanese, article) — https://community.exawizards.com/aishinbun/%E3%83%A6%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A1%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BB%E3%83%8E%E3%82%A2%E3%83%BB%E3%83%8F%E3%83%A9%E3%83%AA%E3%80%81%E3%82%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%BB%E3%82%BF%E3%83%B3%E5%AF%BE%E8%AB%87/
  5. Prologue of the Japanese edition of Nexus, NEXUS 情報の人類史 (in Japanese, sample reading, Kawade Shobo Shinsha) — https://web.kawade.co.jp/tameshiyomi/125429/
  6. Haruyuki Seki, "なぜ民主化が大事なのか" (Why democratization matters) (in Japanese, blog, 2021) — https://note.com/hal_sk/n/ne30a406bd699

Sources

  1. Yuval Noah Harari, "Yuval Noah Harari argues that AI has hacked the operating system of human civilisation" (The Economist, 2023-04-28) — https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2023/04/28/yuval-noah-harari-argues-that-ai-has-hacked-the-operating-system-of-human-civilisation
  2. Kawade Shobo Shinsha, NEXUS 情報の人類史 (2025-03-05, in Japanese) — https://www.kawade.co.jp/np/isbn/9784309229430/
  3. Audrey Tang, "Conversation with Yuval Noah Harari" (RadicalxChange, 2020-06-30) — https://archive.tw/2020-06-30-conversation-with-yuval-noah-harari ［CC0］
  4. Yuval Noah Harari, "Why Technology Favors Tyranny" (The Atlantic, 2018) — https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/yuval-noah-harari-technology-tyranny/568330/
  5. Haruyuki Seki, "なぜ民主化が大事なのか" (2021-05-02, in Japanese) — https://note.com/hal_sk/n/ne30a406bd699
  6. E. Glen Weyl, "Political Ideologies for the 21st Century" (2022-02-17) — https://www.radicalxchange.org/updates/blog/political-ideologies-for-the-21st-century/
  7. Audrey Tang and Liron Shapira, "Doom Debate" (2026-01-20) — https://archive.tw/2026-01-20-doom-debate ［CC0］
  8. Audrey Tang, "Communal AI for a Plural Future" (2025-11-06) — https://archive.tw/2025-11-06-communal-ai-for-a-plural-world ［CC0］
  9. PR TIMES (Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2025-02-06, in Japanese) — https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000877.000012754.html
  10. Yuval Noah Harari, "What explains the rise of humans?" (TED, 2015) — https://www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_what_explains_the_rise_of_humans/transcript ［CC BY-NC-ND 4.0］
  11. Yuval Noah Harari, "'Never summon a power you can't control'" (The Guardian, extract from Nexus, 2024-08-24) — https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/24/yuval-noah-harari-ai-book-extract-nexus
Related: What is the 6-Pack of Care? ・ What is the AI futures debate (AI 2027 and others)? ・ Who is Audrey Tang? ・ Who is E. Glen Weyl? ・ Who is Puja Ohlhaver? ・ Who is Haruyuki Seki? ・ Who is Marc Andreessen? ・ Who is Mustafa Suleyman?

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