Agriculture and algorithms
Along with my resolution to start writing again, I’ve been making an effort this summer to read more books.
As part of that initiative, I finally got around to reading one of the most talked-about books of the past decade: Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens.
Sapiens is full of provocative arguments, but one of the most interesting comes early in the book.
The Agricultural Revolution: History’s Biggest Fraud?
In Part Two of Sapiens, Harari calls the Agricultural Revolution “history’s biggest fraud” because it provided humanity “the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions.”
Even some of Harari’s biggest fans are critical of his conclusion that agriculture made humanity worse off, but it’s hard to dispute the revolution’s unintended consequences: violence, famine, and disease on a previously unimaginable scale.
Although agriculture provided incredible benefits to a small percentage of the population who controlled land and resources, it took a tremendous toll on billions of other people throughout history — the serfs and enslaved populations who were forced to toil in the fields; the starving families beset by crop failures; the medieval cities wiped out during episodes of plague.
Even if we accept that today’s average standard of living is better than the average hunter-gatherer’s, it seems fair to say the transition to agriculture could have been handled better to reduce human suffering.
In the 21st century, we’re finally making global progress on reducing violence, famine, and disease (COVID-19, notwithstanding). But think about how long it’s taken to see meaningful progress — more than 10,000 years!
Fool Me Once…
Early farmers lacked much of the scientific and social knowledge that might have allowed them to mitigate the downside risks of their new lifestyle. But today we’re in a much better place to avoid making the same mistakes as we approach the next wave of revolutions in artificial intelligence and biotechnology.
These scientific advancements have the potential to dwarf agriculture’s impact on humanity, and we are already starting to see the effects they will have upon our societies and economies.
Algorithms increasingly drive our content consumption and social interaction, which means we are meeting people, forming opinions and casting votes based not on our own intelligence but rather artificial intelligence — and the people behind it. (1)
Our economic activity is becoming more dependent upon machine rather than human labor, meaning economic growth and employment (and wage) growth are diverging.
There are plenty of benefits we can secure if we manage these changes the right way. But avoiding the unintended consequences will require more foresight than was displayed by our ancestors in Jericho and Göbekli Tepe.
Reaping What We Sow
We’re still just beginning our journey with A.I. and biotech, but we shouldn’t blithely continue down our current path under the assumption that we can turn back the clock if we later decide we don’t like the impact of these scientific advancements.
This passage from Sapiens stuck with me:
“Then why didn’t humans abandon farming when the plan backfired? Partly because it took generations for the small changes to accumulate and transform society and, by then, nobody remembered that they had ever lived differently. And partly because population growth burned humanity’s boats. If the adoption of ploughing increased a village’s population from a hundred to 110, which ten people would have volunteered to starve so that the others could go back to the good old times? There was no going back. The trap snapped shut.”
A.I. and biotech will likely permeate human society much more quickly than agriculture, but they will also be even harder to unwind.
Which companies will sacrifice their massively profitable A.I.-driven business models if society decides it was better when most humans were employed?
Which families will forego genetic enhancements for their children when protests begin from those without the means to afford these procedures?
Which politicians will graciously relinquish power when it becomes clear they benefit from votes driven by artificial intelligence rather than human intelligence?
Today, we are the people of Jericho and Göbekli Tepe, sowing our fields with wheat for the first time. Unlike those early farmers, we have the gift of hindsight. It would be a shame if we failed to use it to consider what the technological and scientific advancements of our age will mean for the next 10,000 years of humanity - and beyond.
Footnotes
(1) The people behind today’s most prominent A.I. are optimizing for engagement and time spent with their platforms. This will likely drive us to meet the most entertaining people, believe the most sensational theories, and elect the most controversial candidates.