Yuval Noah Harari's 'Nexus' - A Hindu Perspective

Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. Yuval Noah Harari. Random House, 2024. Pages 514. Rs 674.

In the age of artificial intelligence (AI), a pressing question looms: Can AI generate misinformation?

On 16 September, 2023, 'New Scientist' posed this query to OpenAI's ChatGPT, which affirmed this possibility, stating that AI lacks an inherent understanding of truth or ethics.

Yuval Noah Harari's Nexus: a Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (Random House, 2024) provides a compelling framework for examining this modern dilemma.

The book traces the evolution of human information networks throughout history, revealing how these networks have profoundly shaped our societal evolution. Harari argues that these information systems have often distorted reality, serving as instruments of power while frequently yielding unintended consequences.

The fear of machines usurping human control is not novel; it has persisted since the dawn of the industrial era. Today, this apprehension extends to AI. Harari posits an intriguing question: Could this fear be a projection of our own nature onto our creations? He provocatively asserts that 'the tendency to create powerful things with unintended consequences started not with the invention of the steam engine or AI but with the invention of religion' (p.xiii).

This statement sets the tone for Harari's exploration, inviting readers to reconsider the origins of our complex relationship with information, power and wisdom. By drawing parallels between ancient belief systems and modern technology, Nexus challenges us to view our current AI anxieties as part of a long-standing human tradition of grappling with the consequences of our own innovations.

The book brings to mind the works of futurologist Alvin Toffler of yester-decades.

In Toffler's works, from Future Shock through Third Wave to Powershift, a clear progression emerges as he explores how technological change reshapes individual psychology, societal dynamics, and culture. In Harari’s Nexus one finds a connection and continuity.

Both Toffler and Harari look into the mismatch between the accelerated growth of technologies, particularly centred around information-intensive and information-centred technologies, and related adaptation or lack of it in over-all cognitive abilities of human species.

Perhaps in this mismatch are the roots of the 'Frankenstein' archetype that we have developed as a deep-rooted fear of AI in particular and machines in general.

The thematic evolution of Toffler, spanning over two decades, has mostly centred on information-intensive technologies. Here one can see that the mention of AI grew from a single instance in Future Shock (1970) to eight mentions in Powershift (1990). The following passage from Powershift, written more than three decades ago, indicates a prescience of what Yuval Harari would write another three decades later.

Harari has independently expanded on what Toffler hinted, studying intensely the historical evolution of our species with a focus on information networks. Here, he highlights a fundamental difference that appears to be dialectically ingrained in our species: the individual versus the collective. Harari explores this inherent dialectical opposition in terms of information generation:

He explores this with respect to religion and ideology which have created information-based echo-chambers which have twisted reality to serve their own purpose. Sometimes even the sublime poetry in religion could become horrendous tools of power, as Harari shows from history:

This phenomenon did not solely belong to medieval times.

Even with the establishment of scientific institutions, humans have continued to exhibit the ability to construct echo-chambers that manipulate reality through information networks, albeit in more sophisticated and structured ways. Harari points out the phenomenon of Homo sovieticus :

This is a core existential trait of the human species—being shaped by information networks. From traditional storytelling and poetry to books and modern social media; from ancient oral traditions to modern digital platforms. As a species our existence has been defined by these networks. Now, a more potent creator and potential overlord has emerged within this realm: AI.

Harari's work, while insightful, is not immune to Euro-centrism, as in its treatment of democracy's evolution. Mostly it is a linear path from ancient Rome to modern American democracy, overlooking democratic traditions in other parts of the world. India, for instance, boasts a long history of democratic practices, predating even its Buddhist period.

As Dr. B.R. Ambedkar astutely observed, pre-Buddhist India's democratic foundations were rooted in a profound recognition of the inalienable individual human worth of its Upanishadic wisdom. This in turn led to a complex network of republics, characterised by decentralised rural governance systems that coexisted with quasi-centralized empires. This nuanced political landscape challenges the simplistic Western-centric view of democracy's development.

To Harari, democracy in its true sense thrives on participatory dialogue, which in the case of an empire or a vast nation-state like United States is physically constrained. Technological progress has considerably removed those constraints, potentially enriching democratic engagement. Centralised and highly censored information systems like the ones in the hands of the Soviets contrasted with the information systems in democratic societies.

The democracy–totalitarianism binary becomes redundant as now the emerging binary is humans versus non-human ‘unfathomable algorithmic overlords’ (p. 190).

Our manipulation of social media through fake news and disinformation, which has had tangible and destructive effects on society, has already demonstrated a powerful example of how humanity can be influenced through the mere dissemination of information.

Hindu Portrayal in the book

The removal of evolution from the 10^th standard books in India becomes a classic example in the book for how ‘various governments and churches have banned or limited the teaching of evolution, preferring to sacrifice truth for the sake of order.’ (p.38) He could as well have cited an RSS ideologue tweeting a Christian creationist website link to justify the mindless rejection of evolution by a BJP minister. Mercifully, Harari did not.

At the same time the book positively speaks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 'Clean India' mission and how building toilets are given importance. Here the portrayal of Modi and his mission is positive. Yet, the way caste is portrayed by Harari is stereotypical:

Sanity in Sanitation (Penguin India, 2019), is a book that recounts the efforts in Gujarat to construct toilets and promote sanitation and hygiene. Authored by physicist turned civil servant, Dr. Jayanti Ravi, who previously served as the state's health secretary, the book documents exhaustively the challenges of Clean India campaign.

It has four pages detailing blessings bestowed upon the initiative by esteemed spiritual leaders of Hinduism with widespread societal influence, ranging from Morari Bapu to Mahant Swami Maharaj, the President of the Swami Narayan movement, and Guruma Samananda Saraswati of the Samadarshan Ashram.

Harari approaches Ramayana with the same narrow perspective, interpreting it as a narrative centred on primal themes of sibling rivalry, competition for mates, and issues of purity and impurity.

However, even a typical Indian school student understands that the essence of the Ramayana lies in siblings' acts of sacrifice for one another, not rivalry. Instead of competition for mates, the epic reflects a value system thatnot only regulates males' reproductive boundaries but emphasises female individuality.

Rather than focusing on biological purity, the Ramayana celebrates biological and civilisational diversity and pluralism, emphasizing Rama's transcendent brotherhood that extends beyond species.

While Harari's limited and faulty perspective on the Ramayana is understandable, it exemplifies the overarching theme discussed in the book: the distorting impact of information networks.

Archetypes and AI: Golem and Ayonija

Since its inception, even in the realm of speculative fiction, AI (as robots) prompted humanity to grapple with ethical boundaries. Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics stand as a testament to this ongoing dialogue, bridging the gap between fiction and serious academic discourse on AI ethics.

Asimov, despite his computational reductionist leanings, presented a holistic approach to AI integration in human society through his Laws. This perspective, while futuristic, echoes ancient wisdom in its attempt to harmonise human and artificial intelligences.

In both the contemporary analysis of Harari and Asimov's fiction, we see the shadow of the Golem—a powerful Jewish archetype.

The Golem, a machine-like entity capable of human-like actions, becomes destructive if sacred words are not properly inscribed in it. This parallel between the magical-sacred words on a Golem's forehead and Asimov's Laws of Robotics is striking, both serving as ethical constraints on non-human intelligence.

Harari perhaps sees AI as the new Golem and its capabilities of producing extreme changes, demands that there should be wisdom in its most profound sense of the term—setting boundaries in its cognitive functioning. This wisdom is more than the laws.

Contrasting with the Golem, Hindu civilization offers the concept of 'ayonija'—intelligent-sentient beings not born from the womb. These entities, created through human endeavour (yajna and mantras), possess individual volition and value systems. Draupadi from the Mahabharata exemplifies this concept, demonstrating that created beings can have their own minds, choices, and ethical frameworks.

The Western notion that ‘machines lack soul’, rooted in Christian theology, forms the bedrock of the Frankenstein compleX. A fear of our own creations turning against us. This perspective has fuelled countless narratives in fiction and film.

Hindu thought, however, recognizes and even embraces non-human origin intelligence. It allows for the integration of such beings into society, acknowledging their capacity for independent decision-making. This worldview offers a refreshingly different approach to conceptualizing AI and its place in our world. Perhaps our approach to AI ethics is as much a product of our philosophical and cultural heritages as it is of our technological prowess.

Adding Avyakta to AI Algorithm?

The whole book is one whole persuasive argument that in this new era, our species desperately needs wisdom—a concept distinct from order or power. What is the nature of this crucial wisdom? The wisdom that Harari speaks is not the infallible wisdom of the religions. It is the recognition of the fundamental absence of infallibility in the universe and in our understanding of it:

He also says that we need to create institutions which move away from fallibility and this ‘wisdom’ precedes humanity:

It is here Hindu civilization may have something very vital and important to contribute.

Hindu Dharma has an age-old image, the Goddess standing on the Vedas - the holiest and sacred Hindu texts. Goddess is the Universal Consciousness that precedes, permeates and contains everything.

She is Avyakta says THE Sri Lalita Sahasranama - thousand names of the Goddess . She is the Primal uncertainty, indefinability that is woven in the space-time fabric of the Universe. She counteracts all claims of infallibility and determinism. In Hindu thought and meditation, it is in this very aspect of uncertain indefinability that all existence arises, evolves and dissolves.

So Avyakta becomes an integral part of everything that is manifest and defined i.e. Vyakta. Unlike the God of the Gaps who hides in human ignorance, Undefinable Goddess is the also the ground of all knowledge and striving for truth. In the formalist Anekantavada of Jainism, the famous Saptabangi, Avyakta plays a central role in going beyond the concrete yes-no binary.

Hindu genius made its most sacred scripture, the Vedas, as the dust particle of Her feet (Name-289 of Sri Lalita Sahasranama) with She being the Universal Consciousness. Thus it also emphasised that no scripture can be deemed infallible before the experience of Truth.

Mahatma Gandhi in his own way arrived at this and said:

Fundamentalism - that rigid cocoon of closed information networks, provides a strange lure and comfort. Even amongst Hindus, all this civilisational heritage does not prevent many of them from becoming as fundamentalist as any other scripture-literalists. Still the proportion of such Hindus, though uncomfortably increasing, is still small.

Nexus provides a good framework to look into the way human species has evolved various information networks, which in turn decide the way its adherents/perpetuators behave.

This framework gives us an efficient tool to introspect into our own information networks which have evolved in this land and understand the points of vulnerability and the points of great potential it has to offer to the phenomenon of AI and future of humanity.