The main argument of this book is that humankind gains enormous power by building large networks of cooperation, but the way these networks are built predisposes us to use that power unwisely. Our problem, then, is a network problem.

two digital spheres may drift further and further apart. Chinese software would talk only with Chinese hardware and Chinese infrastructure, and the same would happen on the other side of the Silicon Curtain. Since digital code influences human behavior, and human behavior in turn shapes digital code, the two sides may well be moving along different

your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”[15] This is true of AI too. It would be foolish of dictators to believe that AI will necessarily tilt the balance of power in their favor. If they aren’t careful, AI will just grab power to

This idea, sometimes called the counterspeech doctrine, is associated with the U.S. Supreme Court justice Louis D. Brandeis, who wrote in Whitney v. California (1927) that the remedy to false speech is more speech and that in the long term free discussion is bound to expose falsehoods and fallacies.

and economic waves better than more rigid regimes. Thus, those democracies that managed to survive the tumultuous 1960s—like the United States, Japan, and Italy—adapted far more successfully to the computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s than either the communist regimes of Eastern Europe or the fascist holdouts of southern Europe and South

to correct their mistakes. A fourth democratic principle is that surveillance systems must always leave room for both change and rest. In human history, oppression can take the form of either denying humans the ability to change or denying them the opportunity to rest. For example,

But what exactly does “intrinsic goodness” mean? The most famous attempt to define an intrinsically good rule was made by Immanuel Kant, a contemporary of Clausewitz and Napoleon. Kant argued that an intrinsically good rule is any rule that I would like to make universal. According to this view, a person about to murder someone should stop and go

Joseph Stalin, who stood at the nexus of one of the biggest personality cults in history, understood this well. When his troublesome son Vasily exploited his famous name to frighten and awe people, Stalin berated him. “But I’m a Stalin too,” protested Vasily. “No, you’re not,” replied Stalin. “You’re not Stalin and I’m not Stalin. Stalin is Soviet

Both Napoleon and George W. Bush fell victim to the alignment problem. Their short-term military goals were misaligned with their countries’ long-term geopolitical goals. We can understand the whole of Clausewitz’s On War as a warning that “maximizing victory” is as shortsighted a goal as “maximizing user engagement.” According to the Clausewitzian