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Yuval Noah Harari, whose rise to the top echelons of global public intellectuals has been meteoric since the runaway success of his 2011 classic 'Sapiens', is a leading voice on the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI). The historian and wide-ranging scholar who has become a go-to source for the big questions of our times, whose new book 'Nexus' deals with the history of information networks, spoke to Indrajit Hazra and Sruthijith KK on the fading hope for global cooperation on the regulation of AI, the dangers of a Trump administration for the world, the rising importance of India and the influence of Indian knowledge systems and practices in his life. Edited excerpts:We'll start with the global AI arms race. You called for a pause in the development of AI and for a global cooperation framework to pause it. No such thing has happened so far.Nobody really expected it to happen. It was more of a PR stunt to draw attention (of the world) to the issue.Right. So, what would you say are the top risks from AI?On one level, there is a risk of massively increasing global inequality, both within countries, but also between countries. It could be a repeat of the Industrial Revolution when a few countries got the power to dominate and exploit the rest of the world. AI could do the same on an even larger scale as a few countries-maybe just the US and China-lead the world in the development of AI. And you know, AI is so much more powerful than steam engines.The difference between a country that has AI and countries that don't know how to develop this technology will be much bigger than the difference between, say, Britain and countries of South Asia or Africa in the 19th century. So, this could lead to extreme global inequality. Steam engines were tools in our hands. AI is the first technology in history which is not a tool, it’s an agent. It could actually make decisions by itself. It can invent new ideas by itself. So, an AI weapon could decide who to kill by itself. It doesn't need to wait for a human to give a command. Finance is the ideal playground for AI because it's just information. To create a self-driving vehicle and put it on the road, say in Mumbai, is difficult because it will need to know how to interact with the physical environment. But finance is not about physics. It's really just information.So, what happens if AI takes over the financial system? Say, there’s a major financial crisis and no human being—no banker, no president—is able to understand what’s happening because this is already beyond human understanding. So, there is the danger of just losing control of AI. And I'm not talking about a science fiction scenario like The Terminator where AI rebels against the humans.No, we just give them more and more power in banks, in governments, militaries, factories and companies. And you have billions of AIs interacting with each other, making decisions, creating new structures, and we no longer understand the world and lose control.Is a framework of global cooperation even possible in any meaningful sense?In theory, yes. Because AI has still not escaped our control. We are making the decisions on how to develop it. And we can make decisions, for instance, to invest a much larger percentage of money and human talent in safety. It's like when you develop a car or medicine, it's always a question of how much you invest in safety. At present, very little goes to safety because of this ‘arms race’ mentality that everybody is afraid of – ‘If we slow down, invest more in safety and our competitors don't, they will win the AI race and dominate the world!’And with the new US administration, I think there is very little chance that we will see any kind of global agreement on AI or any meaningful regulation. So, this is, I'm afraid, very bad news for humanity.In Sapiens, you talk about how our greatest invention is to be able to believe in shared mythologies like countries, companies, and currencies. Today there is a lot of disinformation, combined with algorithms that are very powerful and addictive platforms. Are we losing the ability to have a shared reality?Absolutely. The main metaphor of the early Internet Age in the 1990s was the web, the World Wide Web—the idea of a web that connects everybody, will know the truth more easily, and this will spread freedom and democracy and so forth.Now, the main metaphor is the ‘cocoon’, like the web that closes in on us. I live in a different information cocoon than you. And we live in a different information cocoon than people in China or in Russia. So, we are losing touch with each other, and there is no longer any shared reality. Something that was discovered thousands of years ago by Hindu sages and Buddhists is that people never really interact with reality. We usually interact with the image of reality.And it's hard to see the reality through this screen of images projected by our own mind, and by minds of other people. Now with AI, the ability to again create images—to create imaginary realities and impose them on people—is becoming greater than ever before. And it's becoming more and more difficult for reality to break through this cocoon of artificial images.For the last 100-odd years, the US has played a very large role in the world affairs as an ‘empire’, a global policeman. And they are about to get a president, a second-term president, who, as you have said, is quite unpredictable. What does this mean for the world?It's very bad news for the world. Donald Trump’s slogan is ‘Make America Great Again’. But the thing is, America is already great. If you look at the US during the Biden era and even before, economically, it's the biggest economy in the world, it’s booming. US GDP is going up, whereas China and Europe are stagnating, and the rest of the world is far behind.Militarily, US domination is even more pronounced. The US army is far stronger than any other army in the world. The US is leading in the AI race. So, AI is likely to make it even more powerful economically and militarily. And if now, all this power is in the hands of a leader like Trump, who openly says that he doesn't want international cooperation, he doesn't believe in universal values. For him, it's just America first.Now we have this double situation that the world has a leader in the US who cares only about itself, and is led by a person who cares only about his own power. There is the challenge of climate change. What is Trump's plan to deal with climate change? None. He simply denies that there is a problem. How does he plan to deal with an AI race, and the danger AI will get out of our control? There is no plan, just deregulation and move faster and faster. Any hope that existed before for some kind of global agreement on AI has no chance now.And the third big problem is the danger of the collapse of the international system and the spread of war and conflict. What is Trump's plan to deal with that? No plan. His vision of the world, like that of other extreme nationalists like Putin, is of the world as a kind of network of fortresses with very high walls, economic and cultural, that care only about themselves. Now, we've been in this situation for thousands of years and we know what happens. Every fortress wants a bit more territory, security and prosperity for itself at the expense of the neighbours.And if you don't have any universal values, if you don't have any global institutions, any global norms and values, there is no way to reach some kind of compromise between these different fortresses. It then goes to all-out war. Given the type of technologies we now have, a Third World War would be absolutely disastrous for humanity.Where do you think the overt partnership between Elon Musk and Donald Trump will lead to?It very clearly will be an administration really allergic to any idea of regulation or global agreement. It seems that Musk thinks he could manipulate and control Trump. But politically, Trump has proven to be much smarter than people thought in the past. In a clash between these two very powerful and self-centered individuals, I think Musk is not necessarily correct to think that he will come on top.India is at a place where we are a rising economic power. There is also a desire for a larger role on the global stage. What is your view of India at this point in time?India has certainly become one of the most important countries, one of the leaders of the world, economically, culturally, politically. I can't predict where it will go. It is a decision of the Indian people and of the Indian government. There is once again a big question about how AI will completely change the economic and political balance of power in the world. India is, at present, behind in the AI race by itself. It probably has no chance of catching up with the US and China. So, it would make sense for India to cooperate with some of the other powers that are being left behind, like Europe, to have a combined strategy on how to prevent the frontrunners from dominating the whole world in a repeat of the imperial age.I think India also has a good reason to be part of the camp of countries that try to restore some kind of order to the international system. It has benefited greatly from the era of globalisation, open borders and international rules, which is now being undermined not just by Trump, but also by its traditional friend, Russia.So far at least, the greatest violation of the international order has been the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since 1945, there have been many wars and conflicts. But the biggest taboo of the international system has been that you cannot invade and conquer another country just because you are stronger. This was the situation for thousands of years, and then it became taboo.Even the US Invasion of Iraq that many people say is like what Putin is doing—it's not. The US never attempted, never thought, of annexing Iraq. It's ridiculous. But with the Russians, every territory conquered by its army is annexed by the Russian state. This is old-style imperialism. If we don't stop it, the international order will collapse and we will see strong countries just trying to grab territory from weaker neighbours. We will see defence budgets skyrocket at the expense of health, education, everything else. Trade will become much more difficult.So, I hope that India will use its leverage with Russia. Russia has its legitimate security concerns, and these should be addressed. But the basic taboo of the international system—that you cannot just invade and conquer another country—should be maintained.You had earlier mentioned that you believe the values of people like Benjamin Netanyahu are the ‘values of the Roman Legion’, while the other side—the side you belong to—is Zionist. You said it's important to reclaim this word which has been vilified. Can you elaborate on that?Yes. So, Zionism is simply the word for the Jewish national movement. Zionism claims something very simple: There is a Jewish people in the same way there is a Palestinian people, Iranian people, Indian people... And it has a right to self-determination. It has a very deep historical and cultural connection to the land between the Mediterranean and Jordan river. Now, this does not mean denying the existence of the Palestinian people. They both have a right to exist in security, dignity, and prosperity.But the deep cause of the conflict is that both sides just deny the right of existence of the other side. And unfortunately, Netanyahu's government very clearly says that only Jews have a right to the entire land. For me, this is not a conclusion from Zionism. This is actually destroying the foundations of Zionism.Post-WW2, we generally saw the rise in rule of law, prosperity, strengthening of institutions. There’s a general reversal of a lot of these. Do we run the risk of a descent into chaos?Absolutely. I mean, we worked very hard to build the global liberal order of the last few decades. It was far from perfect. It had many problems, many weaknesses, but it was better than any other order that existed before. It's very easy to find faults with the global liberal order, But I would ask people, so when was it better? Do you think that the world in the 1950s was better? The 19th century? As a historian, I can tell you there was no golden era. The early 21st century, by many objective yardsticks—level of violence in the world, healthcare—was the best time for humanity.To give you just one statistic, for most of human history, every form of government spent more than 50% of the government budget to pay for soldiers, fortresses and warships. In the early 21st century, the average expenditure of the military all over the world was down to just 7% of the budget, compared with around 10% for healthcare. This was the first time in history that governments around the world spent more money on healthcare than on the military. It was not because of some divine miracle, but because of very hard work to build an international order in which countries felt safe.You spend 1-2 months in India every year practising vipassana. Could you talk a little bit about the influence of India and Indian systems of knowledge and practices on your own scholarship and your own practice?The deepest influence on people is what they practise. If you just read something in a book, this is just intellectual, very shallow. But if you practise something like meditation, it goes much deeper and influences how you see the world and everything you do.For me meditation is closely connected with my scholarship. It purifies and balances my mind and helps me to be a better scholar. Meditation is a training for the mind to just observe the reality as it is, and let go of all the stories, fictions and fantasies.This distinction you discuss in Nexus between the truth and information, and the inadequacy of information to reflect truth, is also a resonant theme in Indian philosophy. Is there any influence of these texts on you?There is some influence. But again, the main influence is from the practice. What I've learned most of all is that real wisdom never comes from just books and articles. They can give you some guidance and point you in the right direction. But ultimately, the most important realisations, they only come from actual practice.The problem is that we are flooded by enormous amounts of information. People think the more information we have, the more knowledge we have. But this is not the case. Most information is junk.First of all, truth is costly. If you want to write a truthful account of something, you need to spend time, energy and money doing research, finding evidence, evaluating the evidence. This is difficult. If you want to write a fantasy, you just write anything that comes up in your mind. It's very cheap.The truth is often complicated because reality is complicated. Fiction can be made as simple as you would like it to be, and people usually prefer simple stories. Truth is also often painful. There are many things people don't want to know about themselves, or about their nation. Sometimes fiction can be made as pleasant, as flattering as you would like it to be. So, in this competition between costly and complicated and painful truth, and cheap, simple, attractive, flattering fiction, the latter tends to win. Information is food of the mind, and it's the same. Too much information is not healthy for the mind. People need to spend more time just digesting the information.

Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) CRR cut temporarily lifted markets mood but they eventually finished with declines, ending their five sessions gaining streak. Bank and IT stocks dragged headline indices, the most. While the S&P BSE Sensex settled at 81,709.12, down by 56.74 or 0.07%, the broader Nifty50 closed at 24,677.80, lower by 30.60 or 0.12%.Nifty ended Friday's session with a marginal loss with cash market volumes on the NSE falling to Rs 1.08 lakh crore, said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities. The near-term trend of Nifty remains positive, he said. "Nifty on weekly charts gained the most since early June and formed a long bull candle with minor upper shadow. Having moved above the crucial hurdle of 24,500 there is a possibility of more upside in the coming week/s. The next upside targets to be watched are around 24,857-24,882 band and later 25,084 in the near term. Immediate support is at 24,351," Jasani said. What should traders do? Here’s what analysts said:Rupak De, LKP SecuritiesThe Nifty continues to sustain above the breakout from an inverse head-and-shoulders pattern, indicating underlying market strength. In such conditions, adopting a buy-on-dips strategy seems prudent, especially with the potential for an upward move toward 25,500 in the short term. However, minor pullbacks following a sharp rally are possible, further emphasizing the effectiveness of buying on dips to capitalize on this trend.Om Mehra, Technical Analyst, SAMCO SecuritiesDespite oscillating within a narrow range on Friday, the Nifty index is holding steady above the crucial 24,650 support level. The primary trend remains positive, as Nifty trades near the upper band of the Donchian Channel, which is trending higher—a signal of potential bullish momentum. Additionally, India's VIX remains subdued, hovering below the 15 mark, suggesting a contraction in volatility and reduced fear in the market. The outlook remains optimistic as long as 24,500 holds on a closing basis. A decisive move above 24,700 could open doors for further upside, while failure to sustain could lead to consolidation.Hrishikesh Yedve, Asit C. Mehta Investment Intermediates Technically, on the daily chart, the index took a pause after a strong rally and formed a small red candle, while on the weekly chart, it formed a strong bullish candle, indicating strength. Additionally, the index has witnessed a breakout from an inverted head and shoulders pattern. As per this breakout, the index could test 25,000-25,200 levels in the medium term. Immediate support is placed near 24,550, followed by 24,300. As long as the Nifty stays above 24,300, traders should adopt a buy on dips strategy.Also Read: LG Electronics India files for IPO to sell 10.18 crore shares(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)