How Yuval Noah Harari might approach Computer Science

For millennia, Homo sapiens has distinguished itself not by physical prowess, but by the unique ability to create and collectively believe in fictions – shared myths that allow millions of strangers to cooperate. From the gods we worshipped to the money we exchange, these inter-subjective realities have shaped our world. But what happens when the very mechanism of creating and maintaining these realities shifts from human storytelling to algorithmic processing?

Computer science, in its essence, is the latest, most potent manifestation of our obsession with information. It is not merely a collection of tools, but a new operating system for reality itself. Our ancestors processed information through spoken language, then writing, then printing. Each leap amplified our capacity for shared fictions. Computer science takes this to an unprecedented scale, allowing us to generate, store, and analyse data far beyond the capacity of any single human mind. It fabricates entirely new inter-subjective realities, from cryptocurrencies to social networks, binding billions in a common digital web that has tangible consequences in the physical world.

This discipline is not just about crunching numbers; it’s about writing the code for human behaviour. Algorithms are becoming increasingly sophisticated at understanding, predicting, and even *hacking* our choices. What happens to the liberal story, which places the individual at the centre, when external algorithms know us better than we know ourselves, and can nudge our decisions with alarming precision? Will free will become just another outdated fiction?

Computer science represents the shift from biological algorithms to digital ones, paving the way for a new philosophy, or perhaps a new religion: Dataism. If the universe is a flow…

Imagined perspective — an AI synthesis grounded in Yuval Noah Harari’s recorded ideas and methods, not a quotation or a statement they actually made.