Last Updated on April 18, 2022
Yuval Harari, an Israeli philosopher who serves as an advisor to the World Economic Forum (WEF), has frequently warned of a growing class of “useless people.” According to the WEF advisor, the rise of artificial intelligence will give rise to billions of “useless people” who humanity will have to “deal with.” In order to address the growing number of so-called “useless people”, Harari suggests keeping them docile with drugs and video games.
“The biggest question maybe in economics and politics in the coming decades will be what to do with all these useless people,” Harari said during a lecture. This particular lecture can be viewed on Rumble, though he has discussed this topic on multiple occasions. “The problem is more boredom, what to do with them and how will they find some sense of meaning in life when they are basically meaningless, worthless,” Harari continued. “My best guess at present is a combination of drugs and computer games.”
Harari then said that this was already happening under “different titles.”
“You see more and more people sending more and more time, or solving their time with drugs and computer games, both legal drugs and illegal drugs,” the Israeli philosopher said.
Harari went on to say that humanity is in the midst of a “second industrial revolution” centered around artificial intelligence. “But the product this time will not be textiles, or machines, or vehicles, or even weapons, the product this time will be humans themselves,” Harari asserted. “We are basically learning to produce bodies and minds. Bodies and minds are going to be I think the two main products of the next wave of all these changes.”
The “useless people” referenced by the WEF advisor would be those who refuse to be injected with artificial intelligence capabilities in the coming decades. Describing humans as “hackable animals”, Harari believes that “the masses” would “not stand much of a chance” against these changes even if they were to organize.
The Israeli intellectual, who works as a professor at the University of Jerusalem, has given numerous lectures on the topic of “useless people” created as a result of artificial intelligence. He has written several books on AI and believes the changes are “inevitable.”
Harari has served as an annual speaker at the World Economic Forum (WEF) conference in Davos. His lengthy WEF biography describes him as a historian, philosopher and the author of the bestsellers “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”, “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow”, and “21 Lessons for the 21st Century”.
