The AI Takeover Is Imminent. Why Reading Is the Most Important Skill for the 21st Century

Reading allows us to upgrade our brains. The faster and more efficiently we read, the faster we upgrade.

We all know reading is important. It’s drilled into us by our parents, teachers, and self-help gurus.

It takes center stage in one of the 21st century’s ultimate virtue signals: the canvas tote bags sporting logos of the New Yorker or Daunt Books.

But rarely do we really dig into why reading is so important.

Perhaps this weak understanding is part of the reason why, according to Pew Research in 2019, around a quarter of US adults (27%) claim not to have read a book in the past year, whether in whole or in part, in print, electronic or audio form.

It’s a shocking statistic. And by the end of this article, you’ll find it positively bleak against the backdrop of the 21st century.

So, why read, and why now? To answer that question, we must begin at the end, by examining the mind of a man trying to eliminate reading entirely: Elon Musk.

Disrupting how ideas enter the mind

Musk is arguably one of the most consequential people alive on Earth. His exploits in space travel and electric vehicles have been all over our news feeds, and for those with shares in Tesla, he may well be taking your net worth into the stratosphere as well.

But there’s one small startup in his portfolio that may yet prove to be his most consequential yet — Neuralink.

What is Neuralink? It’s a company attempting to develop a brain-computer interface, with a view to allowing bidirectional data transfer between our brains and a computer as easily as two computers do between each other. If images of the Terminator are flashing across your mind, you’re in the right ballpark.

Sound crazy? Wouldn’t be Elon’s first moonshot. But to understand why the company exists, you need to know Elon’s views on artificial intelligence.

Simply put: Elon is terrified of AI’s potential to eliminate the human race.

He fears it will decide that we are not only an unnecessary burden but pose an existential threat to Earth via climate change and must be eliminated. AI will run scenarios so quickly and iterate so rapidly that even with the tremendous computational power available to us, we won’t be able to keep up.

The rate-limiting factor? You guessed it — our feeble brains, too slow and weak to keep up.

And that is why Neuralink exists. Elon is building the intellectual nuclear deterrent we need to stave off AI-driven extinction by upgrading humanity.

What has reading got to do with it?

It’s quite simple. Reading is the interface between our brains and the vast amounts of information available to us today.

It’s the bootloader for new neural operating systems, for subversive ideas, contrarian thoughts, even spiritual revelations. Reading allows us to obtain an understanding of virtually any field, skill, or concept, in exchange for time and effort.

In short, reading allows us to upgrade our brains.

And the faster and more efficiently we read, the faster we upgrade.

It’s no surprise that experts in every field, from venture capital and philosophy to politics and data science, are so effusive about the benefits of reading.

It’s why Yuval Noah Harari has captivated leaders across the intellectual spectrum, from technology to politics and psychology. Bill Gates, Barack Obama and Daniel Kahneman all downloaded the Sapiens update and were full of praise.

How did Elon become an expert in rocket science for SpaceX? He devoured Jim Cantrell’s textbooks on rocket propulsion and astrodynamics, using the mental upgrade to build a revolutionary, multi-billion dollar company.

And that’s just scratching the surface — reading can transport you to new worlds, make you laugh, weep, often both, often simultaneously. But these facts have held true since the dawn of literacy (or at least the dawn of great literature). The question is, why is reading more important than ever right now?

To survive the 21st century, humans must undergo evolution in real-time

Remember the Australian bushfires? The memes about the Iranian nuclear deal and WW3? Things we thought were sure to be the defining moments of 2020?

Surprise: we have no idea what the future will look like.

Worse still, we think we know what it looks like. Pundits pontificate about the post-Covid-19 world, consultancies charge eye-watering fees for their color-coordinated prophecies, and computer science is glorified as the one degree to rule them all.

Yet, if 2020 has taught us anything, it is that we know nothing at all.

In this chaotic and uncertain world, we will need to be more adaptable than ever before — humans will need to become truly modular. Skills will need to be acquired rapidly, not just in our youth but across our entire lifetimes. We will need to become intellectual omnivores and polymaths. Our mental models and operating systems will need to be augmented, improved, even replaced entirely, as we grapple with the flywheel of a future in flux.

Sounds like you’ll need to upgrade quite a lot.

Better make sure your information interface is up to scratch.

Final thoughts

Leveraging the power of reading enables us to become future-resilient — and you’re doing it right now. And until Elon’s latest moonshot bears fruit, it’s pretty much the best interface we’ve got.

So pick your upgrades and start uploading. With the future as uncertain as ever, and in a world driven by ever more sophisticated technologies, it is somewhat poetic that our most potent advantage will be the oldest information interface known to man.