Yuval Noah Harari writes books that are often equal parts fascinating and chilling. They combine meticulously researched details with deeply considered possibilities. He bases his predictions of places we may be heading on the foundations of where we’ve been.

“Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI” looks at the history of our communications systems and where we are and where we may be moving as a society when it comes to artificial intelligence.

Harari looks at the possibilities from multiple angles: how AI may work in democracies, how it could work in totalitarian regimes, how AI could work against both, how it could overtake humanity, etc.

In “Nexus,” as he did in his 2016 book, “Homo Deus,” Harari notes that AI is something humanity has never previously encountered. Though a man-made system, AI can make its own decisions and act upon those decisions, independent of human involvement. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing for humanity has yet to be seen. He notes we are closing in on a point where our feelings about AI won’t really matter. And AI certainly won’t care.

Harari underscores that AI does not need to become “sentient” to decide or act. AI is already responding independently. The author compares AI responses to reactions within the human body. We do not consciously decide to sweat, or shiver, or itch, our brain automatically does these things. Same with AI and some algorithms. AI does not need to be “self-aware.” AI and algorithms have already developed to automatically respond to certain stimuli.

“Nexus,” like “Homo Deus” and Harari’s most famous title, “Sapiens,” is one of those books that contains a revelation on every page. He shines a light on where we’ve been and sounds an alarm for where we might be heading.

Profiles in Ignorance: Andy Borowitz

Andy Borowitz may need to update this book again.

“Profiles in Ignorance: How America’s Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber” was originally published during President Donald’s Trump’s first term. Borowitz offered a new afterword following Trump’s 2020 loss to President Joe Biden.

And now, Trump is back.

Afterwords and addendum aside, “Profiles in Ignorance” is about the dumbing down of American candidates on the national political stage.

The book opens with two quotes. One from President Harry S. Truman: “Being dumb’s just about the worst thing there is when it comes to holding high office.” And a Trump quote: “The worst thing a man can do is go bald.”

Borowitz boils his book down to the “Three Stages of Ignorance: Ridicule, Acceptance and Celebration.”

He considers Ronald Reagan and Dan Quayle as part of the Ridicule stage. Reagan could hide his “cluelessness,” while Quayle could not, which led to public mockery of Quayle.

The Acceptance stage changed the schematic from a politician being ridiculed for being ignorant to ignorance being seen as a sign of the leader being authentic, as being a “normal person.” Borowitz looks at George W. Bush and Sarah Palin as fitting this mold.

Celebration – “the ordeal we’re enduring right now,” Borowitz writes, is when “ignorance has become preferable to knowledge, dunces are exalted over experts and a candidate can win a seat in Congress after blaming wildfires on Jewish space lasers. … Smart politicians must pretend to be dumb.” He profiles Trump, Ted Cruz and Ron DeSantis in this category.

Borowitz notes that even though his profiles are of Republicans, Democrats have also fielded some pretty ignorant candidates through the years. But with a major caveat.

“While Democrat dopes have wreaked their share of havoc, the scale of their destruction doesn’t equal that of their Republican counterparts,” Borowitz writes. “Once Democrats gin up a two-trillion-dollar war to find non-existent weapons of mass destruction, ignore and then politicize a virus that causes nearly a million needless deaths and attempt a violent overthrow of the U.S. government, I’ll get cracking on a book about them.”

While Borowitz writes with a knife-edged satirical tongue in cheek, daily news reports underscore the tragedy of his humorous assessments.