21世紀人類的最大挑戰

The production of this video is funded by the Higher Education Sprout Project of the National Taipei University of Business. The fifth episode is about the future of the humanity. The intended learning outcome for this unit is the understanding of different human relationships with others. After watching this video, students will understand an individual's connection with other people such as family, friends, community, society, and all humans. The widespread use of wearable devices, which collect a large amount of personal data like heart rate, sleep patterns, and exercise habits, raises significant ethical concerns. The ability to hack human biology and psychology through this data means that advanced technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, can predict our choices, understand our feelings, and ultimately influence or control our behavior. Leaving us vulnerable to manipulation. But do you know why? Next, let's watch an animation by Muxin together. Yuval Noah Harari stands before an audience, calm but intense. He explains that for most of history, power came from controlling land, machines, and armies. But in the 21st century, he says, power shifts to controlling data. The audience leans forward as he describes how technology penetrates daily life. Humans are hackable animals, he declares. Faces in the crowd register shock and curiosity. Harari explains that to hack someone, you need three things, data, computing power, and an understanding of biology. Big tech and governments already hold vast oceans of personal data. Every click, like, and pause on a video reveals inner desires. Algorithms analyze these signals better than we understand ourselves. Harari illustrates, your phone knows you are falling in love before you do. A couple in the audience glance nervously at each other. He describes biometric sensors, tracking heartbeat, eye movement, and even skin temperature. When combined with AI, these signals expose hidden emotions. Imagine a dictator who knows your fears better than you, Harari warns. Images of surveillance cameras and drones fill the screen. He recalls how in the past, leaders controlled people with stories and myths. Now, leaders may control people by manipulating dopamine and attention. The line between persuasion and control grows dangerously thin. Harari raises the question, who owns your body and your mind? Silence falls as the audience realizes the weight of the question. He warns of a future where corporations sell not only products but also identities. The screen shows targeted ad-shaping moods and decisions. Elections could be won not with promises, but with precision-engineered emotions. Harari says, once hacked, freedom becomes an illusion. He pauses, then offers hope. Humans are vulnerable, but not powerless. We must demand transparency in data collection and usage. We must create global rules, not just local laws. Education must teach awareness of manipulation, not only literacy. Technology can also heal personalized medicine, empathy networks, shared knowledge. The choice lies with humanity, to be hacked or to protect dignity. Harari closes, the future of freedom depends on whether we understand ourselves before others do. But what does Yuval Noah Harari's concept of the, quote, hackable human have anything to do with the humanity of others? Let's watch a video of AI-narrated slides by NotebookLM that provide in-depth summaries of Harari's idea, which argues that advancements in biotechnology and AI will allow us to manipulate and redesign human beings. His idea fundamentally challenges our traditional understanding of humanity and free will. In addition, it raises a profound question about whether our humanity is a fixed essence or a malleable design. Welcome to The Explainer. Today, we are diving deep into historian Yuval Noah Harari's really stark warnings about artificial intelligence. And look, we're not talking about killer robots from some sci-fi movie. Harari's concerns are way more personal, way more immediate. They go right to the heart of what it even means to be human. So let's just park on this question for a moment because it is everything. This is the single thread that runs through Harari's entire argument, connecting everything from the future of our jobs to the very survival of free will. To really get the warning, you first have to get the person who's giving it. And what's so interesting about Harari is that he isn't a programmer or a tech CEO. He's a historian. And believe me, that perspective changes everything. Yeah, this background is absolutely key. You see, Harari looks at AI and he doesn't just see a cool new gadget. He sees a force of history on the same level as the invention of writing or the agricultural revolution. He's trained to spot these massive, long-term patterns. And the one he's seeing now is about to completely rewrite the human story. So how does he build this case? Well, it's not just one thing. He pulls from all these different fields. He uses history as the grand stage, right? Then he brings in biology to explain the mechanics, this wild idea of us as hackable animals. Philosophy helps define what's at stake, you know, our core values. And then economics predicts how the whole system of power is going to get scrambled. It's this combination that gives his warnings so much punch. All right, so what is the actual threat he's pointing to? Well, it all kicks off with a new kind of belief system, almost like a new religion for our times, that he's dubbed data-ism. Just let that sink in for a second. From this point of view, the universe isn't some divine creation or a big mystery. It's just a gigantic flow of data. And everything inside it, love, war, art, your own thoughts, can all be boiled down to simple data patterns. The value of anything, even you, is just its ability to contribute to processing more data. And this quote right here, it just perfectly captures this massive shift in where we look for authority. For thousands of years, we looked to the gods. Then, during humanism, we were told to look inside, to trust our feelings, our heart. Data-ism says, nope, both of those are unreliable. The new ultimate authority, the algorithm. And this brings us to what is, for my money, Harari's most chilling idea. That humans are hackable animals. He argues that our emotions, our desires, they're not some kind of spiritual magic. They're just biological algorithms, fine-tuned over millions of years of evolution. And if they're algorithms, they can be understood and, well, hacked. If an external system has enough of your data, what you click on, who you text, your heart rate when you see a news story, it can understand your internal operating system better than you do. And then, it can start to pull the strings. Okay, so how does an abstract idea like that actually crash into our daily lives and become a real crisis? Well, it starts with something we all worry about, the future of work. But for Harari, this is about so much more than just losing jobs. He doesn't just talk about unemployment. He warns about the rise of a whole new class of people, the useless class. I know, it's a really harsh term. But he's using it in a cold, economic sense. A group of people who are simply no longer needed by the economic system. This is where things are different this time. You know, in past revolutions, a farmer who lost his job could go become a factory worker. A new job was created for everyone that was lost. But AI might be totally different. It could wipe out jobs way faster than it creates new ones. And those new jobs might require skills that most of us just can't learn. And this is a problem you can't just solve with something like a universal basic income. For most history, a job wasn't just a paycheck. It was our identity. It was our community. It was our purpose. What happens to a society when that just disappears for tens of millions of people? We are staring down the barrel of a profound crisis of meaning. This whole situation forces us to ask a really tough question. What do we actually value? For all of time, intelligence and consciousness came as a package deal in us. But AI splits them apart. Now you can have massive intelligence with zero consciousness. So if our whole economy starts to prioritize raw problem-solving power, what happens to the value of just being human? The value of feeling joy or love or even pain? It could just plummet. So this massive concentration of data and intelligence, it's not just a threat to our sense of purpose. It leads to another one of Harari's most dire warnings. A concentration of power unlike anything we have ever seen before. You know, unlike oil or gold, the more data an AI has, the better it gets. Which creates these natural monopolies. I mean, think about that number. Nine. Just nine companies control most of the world's most critical resource right now, which is our data. And that concentration is on track to become just staggering. Some people are predicting that by 2035, something like 75% of all global data could be in the hands of these few giants. This is what lays the groundwork for what Harari calls a digital dictatorship. A regime that doesn't control you with soldiers, but controls you by shaping your desires before you even know you have them. And this is not just a corporate problem. It's a global one. The race to dominate AI is the new arms race, plain and simple. And it's really only being fought between three major players. The US, China, and the EU. If a government gets its hands on the power to hack its entire population, well, that's a tool of total control that would make George Orwell blush. Which brings us to this really deep paradox. On the one hand, AI seems to give us more freedom, right? Infinite choices on what to watch. Perfectly planned vacations. But here's the catch. Every time we outsource a decision to an algorithm, our own muscle for making choices. Our own autonomy. It just gets a little bit weaker. Okay, so after laying out all of these enormous threats, Harari doesn't just leave us in despair. He actually outlines three very different futures. Three paths that he says we are choosing between. Whether we realize it or not, right now. Path one is, well, it's the classic dystopia. This is the future where AI becomes the ultimate tool of control. An absolute power gets concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite who owns all the data and the algorithms. Path two is the one we're all hoping for. This is the future where we actually get it right. We manage the technology, we build in safeguards, and we use AI as a powerful tool to help humans flourish while protecting our freedom and our core values. And then there's path three. And this one might be the weirdest of all. It's not a violent takeover. It's a voluntary surrender. It's the future where we just willingly hand over our authority to the algorithms. Because, hey, they're just better at making decisions. In this world, humanity's new purpose is simply to feed the data flow and eventually just merge with the system. So how do we steer towards that better second path? Well, Harari's suggestions aren't really about code. They're about philosophy. He says we have to demand global cooperation to avoid an AI arms race. We have to build technology that actually values human consciousness. We have to redefine what meaningful work even looks like. And above all, we need radical transparency. We just have to know who is pulling the levers and why. In the end, Harari leaves us wrestling with this incredibly powerful question. This whole story isn't something that's just happening to us. We are living in the middle of it. And the choices that we all make right now in the next few years about how we regulate and build this technology, those choices will decide whether the next chapter of the human story is written by us or for us. The script is still being written. In his work, Yuval Noah Harari presents the concept of the hackable human, arguing that advancements in biotechnology and AI will allow us to manipulate and redesign human beings. This idea fundamentally challenges our traditional understanding of humanity and free will. Harari suggests that the human experience, including our thoughts, emotions and desires, is no longer a mysterious or sacred realm, but a biological algorithm that can be understood and manipulated by data. He posits that external algorithms could soon know us better than we know ourselves, making it possible to predict and even control our choices. This raises profound questions about what it means to be human in a world where our very nature could be engineered. And whether our humanity is a fixed essence or a malleable design. The main challenge is the emergence of technology that can hack into human bodies. Such technology threatens personal autonomy and privacy at a fundamental biological level, unlike other technologies that affect external systems. The main ethical concern is about consent and control over one's own body, as hacking can manipulate or monitor individuals without their permission. Access to such advanced technology could be limited to wealthy individuals or groups, potentially increasing social divides and power imbalances. Privacy is at risk of being completely compromised, because hacking the body can reveal intimate personal data and control biological functions, violating fundamental rights. While the technology poses risks, it can also be used for medical purposes, such as restoring lost functions or treating diseases. We need proactive ethical thinking to manage the risks of such transformative technology responsibly. Don't forget to click the red subscribe button and please give me a thumbs up.