"Trained as a historian of medieval warfare, Yuval Noah Harari has become one of the most influential public intellectuals in the world, shaping global debates about artificial intelligence, human identity, and the future of society. Richard Utz traces how a medievalist moved from specialist scholarship to cultural prophecy-and why the habits of medieval history still matter for understanding his voice today."
"When Umberto Eco died in 2016, the world lost its most widely known public medievalist. Eco, whose work incorporates books on the aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, the novel The Name of the Rose (50 million copies sold!), and a vast number of other novels, scholarly publications, and newspaper articles, commented freely on political, cultural, and social matters, and his views reached millions of readers."
"The AI immigrants will take many human jobs. The AI immigrants will completely change the culture of every country. They will change art, religion, and even romance. Some people don't like it if their son or daughter is dating an immigrant boyfriend. What would these people think when their son or daughter starts dating an AI boyfriend? But of course the AI immigrants will have some dubious political loyalties."
Yuval Noah Harari trained as a historian of medieval warfare and later gained global influence as a public intellectual shaping debates on artificial intelligence, human identity, and societal futures. Medievalist training informs broad cultural narratives and the habit of connecting historical patterns to contemporary issues. Comparisons to public medievalists such as Umberto Eco emphasize a rare reach beyond academia, combining bestselling books and frequent commentary on politics and culture. At Davos Harari likened agentic AI to immigration, predicting job displacement, cultural transformation, and shifting loyalties toward corporations or foreign powers. Medieval history perspectives continue to shape the framing and rhetoric of his public voice.
Read at Medievalists.net
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