Nobody is ever made happy by winning the lottery, buying a house, getting a promotion or even finding true love. Peopleare made happy by one thing an… - Yuval Noah Harari

The real difference between us and chimpanzees is the mythical glue that binds together large numbers of individuals, families and groups.

As algorithms come to know us so well, authoritarian governments could gain absolute control over their citizens, even more so than in Nazi Germany, and resistance to such regimes might be utterly impossible. Not only will the regime know exactly how you feel – it could make you feel whatever it wants. The dictator might not be able to provide citizens with healthcare or equality, but he could make them love him and hate his opponents. Democracy in its present form cannot survive the merger of biotech and infotech. Either democracy will successfully reinvent itself in a radically new form, or humans will come to live in ‘digital dictatorships’.

1: Increasing the number of processors.