Who are we now? – humanity’s next frontier

AS ONE of Google’s top artificial intelligence (AI) researchers, Blaise Aguera y Arcas naturally has an intense interest in technology, but he has also developed a deep fascination with humanity. If we are to build intelligent machines to do what humans want, then we first need to understand what humans want. But in a world in which identities, beliefs and genders have become so fluid, the answers are not always obvious. 

So, with a geek’s obsession with data-rich evidence, Aguera y Arcas surveyed tens of thousands of Americans between 2016 and 2022 about their identity to find out who “we” really are. His book, one of the largest such studies since sex researcher Alfred Kinsey’s surveys in the middle of the 20th century, is an engrossing, challenging and at times startling movie show of contemporary America.

Packed with data points and charts about respondents’ views on family, sex, gender, beliefs and identity, the book highlights many of the complexities of the human experience and the divides that now exist between different generations and localities. “As if in a lava flow, the cultural landscape is being shaped and reshaped before our eyes,” he writes.