The prophet’s warning Yuval Noah Harari is one of the most fashionable thinkers on the planet right now – and some of his thoughts are deeply disturbing, says Cole Moreton in The Mail on Sunday. The academic has written two bestselling books about the evolution of the human race: the first, Sapiens, described our history to date, and the second, Homo Deus, predicts our future – which, he believes, is already upon us. “We’re going to become cyborgs, combining organic and inorganic parts,” says Harari. “The human brain will still be the command-and controlled centre, but you’ll connect it more and more directly to all kinds of devices, whether it’s bionic arms or direct brain-computer interfaces.” Some of this is happening right now, he points out. “People already have bionic arms and legs that work by the power of thought. And we increasingly outsource mental and communicative activities to computers. We are merging with our smartphones. Very soon they will just be part of the body.”
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