Super-Human - by David Halpern & Elisabeth Costa (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Two of the world's leading researchers on behavior and decision-making join forces to equip readers with the knowledge, tools, and techniques to live our best, most human lives in an age of machines.

"The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous." --E.O Wilson

Our choices and experience of the world are increasingly shaped by powerful interests and godlike technology. Somebody else is deciding what 'good' choices look like--and often that means good for them, not for you. From the social media apps hijacking your attention and algorithms quietly curating your reality, to the markets profiting from confusion and AI systems slowly eroding your thinking: your choices are shaped by people who understand your psychology better than you do, and use that knowledge for their own ends. Against this backdrop, it is easy to feel diminished and 'done to'.

This book is about fighting back--individually and collectively--and becoming the best of ourselves. Becoming super-humans. Drawing on over 1,000 experiments run across more than 70 countries, Halpern and Costa show how you can boost your own agency and decision-making, how we can upgrade our systems and institutions so that it is easier for everyone to choose well, and how we can shape AI so that it amplifies human capability rather than replacing it.

Super-Human ultimately asks us to make the biggest choice of all: in an age when machines can think, decide and even feel on our behalf--what kind of humans do we want to be?

• Human. Reclaiming agency and becoming a better decision-maker (Chapters 1-3). Understanding how human attention and sense-making works, so that we can self-guide, rather than be hacked by others - and more effectively turn our intentions into action.
• Supra-human. Building systems that support us to choose well together. (Chapters 4-7). Humans are social creatures, who think aloud and together. It's a feature not a fault. Social networks, markets and institutions strongly enable us to achieve things we could never do alone, but also operate as 'supra-human' influences on our behavior. Yet individually and collectively we have power to channel and shape them too - more power than we realize
• Super-human. Shaping the technology that will shape us. (Chapter 8) AI could be the ultimate 'bicycle of the mind', but it can also become a crutch rather than a coach. It poses opportunity and challenge - to boost our capabilities to superhuman levels, or to become our inadvertent master.
• Future-human. What kind of humans do we ultimately want to be? (Conclusion) Our minds today have been shaped by the technologies and institutions of our ancestors, in ways they could not have anticipated. We can make choices that will alter our minds and those that follow: what shall we choose?