Blood pressure Quote by Yuval Noah Harari
““Here are some practical Dataist guidelines for you: ‘You want to know who you really are?’ asks Dataism. ‘Then forget about mountains and museums. Have you had your DNA sequenced? No?! What are you waiting for? Go and do it today. And convince your grandparents, parents and siblings to have their DNA sequenced too – their data is very valuable for you. And have you heard about these wearable biometric devices that measure your blood pressure and heart rate twenty-four hours a day? Good – so buy one of those, put it on and connect it to your smartphone. And while you are shopping, buy a mobile camera and microphone, record everything you do, and put in online. And allow Google and Facebook to read all your emails, monitor all your chats and messages, and keep a record of all your Likes and clicks. If you do all that, then the great algorithms of the Internet-of-All-Things will tell you whom to marry, which career to pursue and whether to start a war.’ But where do these great algorithms come from? This is the mystery of Dataism. Just as according to Christianity we humans cannot understand God and His plan, so Dataism declares that the human brain cannot fathom the new master algorithms. At present, of course, the algorithms are mostly written by human hackers. Yet the really important algorithms – such as the Google search algorithm – are developed by huge teams. Each member understands just one part of the puzzle, and nobody really understands the algorithm as a whole. Moreover, with the rise of machine learning and artificial neural networks, more and more algorithms evolve independently, improving themselves and learning from their own mistakes. They analyse astronomical amounts of data that no human can possibly encompass, and learn to recognise patterns and adopt strategies that escape the human mind. The seed algorithm may initially be developed by humans, but as it grows it follows its own path, going where no human has gone before – and where no human can follow.””
About This Quote
Source Book: Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari, 2015
Dataism promotes surrendering personal autonomy to massive data collection and algorithmic decision‑making, treating data as a new religion.
In simple terms: Dataism treats data as a belief system that dictates life choices.
Question the authority of data‑driven algorithms.
Themes
Mood
Type
When to use this quote
- personal health tracking
- family genetic testing
- social media profiling
- career counseling
- relationship matching
Key Concepts
Questions to Reflect On
- How much personal data are you willing to share?
- Can algorithms truly understand human values?
Algorithms may be opaque and biased, risking loss of individual freedom.