The book takes a peek into the future that will be dominated by machines. A future where there won't be any ordinary jobs and there will be machines to fix other machines.

Now, imagine there is nothing to work on, humans have no skills that cannot be emulated by machines. There is no task that humans do that the machines cannot. Who controls whom in this scenario?

Although this seems like an exciting Sci-Fi movie, the author is not Zhat Vash warning you about annihilation by synths. He is predicting problems for government and governance in the near future.

Problems that technology is already causing us with rampant use of bots by political parties and enemy countries to influence people's opinions and outcomes of elections and public opinion.

As we move forward on this path, more laborious jobs will be eliminated, resulting in widespread unemployment, and the transfer of power will shift from the masses to people who own and control technology.

The author shows with examples how this shift will create further inequality in distribution of wealth, and weaken the voice of people in democracies and governance.

While the author paints a dystopian scenario, he also shows us how we can keep our principles alive and thriving by using technology in the right way. The author suggests different ways governments can keep people involved and make wealth distribution equitable .

The author stresses that technology can be a boon to us all and we can use it to improve our lives, and aim for higher targets in a post-work world. A world where machines and humans collaborate to further our advance like never before.

Overall, a must read book for anyone who wonders how the advance of thinking machines will impact our world and our social systems - beyond the dystopian movies.

Cyber Republic, by George Zarkadarias, manages in a short book to explain a bit about our current world situation, with the challenges liberal democracies are facing with the advent AI and to present his idea for a future liberal democracy that would help solving the problems brought by the 4ht Industrial Revolution.

The author makes a great job explaining difficult concepts in an interesting yet simple way. I struggled a little to go through the part he explains blockchain, but I believe that is more of a personal issue of me not being very interested in the subject "cryptocurrencies" itself. The first half of the book he takes the time to really go over the concepts and current overview of the liberal democracies, which I can definitely appreciate as it helped me understand his proposal. Second half he focused on the Cyber Rebublic itself, showing its main principles, foundations, importance, challenges and the best way to go with implementing. He takes the time to show examples and studies to explain his reasoning, making it easier for us to see where it was coming from

I received an ARC of this book to read through NetGalley in exchange for a fair review

This is a very ambitious attempt to draw a connection among many issues the world is facing: 4th industrial revolution driven by AI and what it means to the future of work; the challenge to democracy driven by the simultaneous rise of populistic and authoritarian governments; the increasing income inequality after the global financial crisis, and more. They seem to be very different issues and Zarkadakis is making a courageous attempt to connect the dots, by answering the question: How is democracy going to look like when AI increasingly replace labor, and how to use this technology to "solve the knowledge and wealth asymmetries"?

Zarkadakis proposed a few interesting ideas: "civil assemblies" driven by individual participation, AI development which focuses on complementing human activities instead of replacing them, and the use of decentralized blockchain to incentivize public's participation and redistributing wealth. These models are unique in elevating the technology discussion to the public policy level, and allow us to envision a future where technology advancement not only improves efficiency and saves cost, but also helps preserve democracy and create a better society. These ideas are also thought-provoking as I don't think many people have tried to connect the concepts of technology and democracy together.

Nevertheless, I almost feel like these ideologies are very far away from reality - it is great to imagine the endless possibilities brought by new technologies like blockchain and AI, yet from a practical perspective, it does not seem like something that can be achieved in the next decade, especially given the current political landscape and the lack of focus of technologies in the political arena.

I really love the ideas proposed by this book and I applaud Zarkadakis’ attempt to propose some innovative solutions to some of the most challenging issues faced by the world these days. One thing I didn't enjoy as much - perhaps a personal preference - is the tendency of Zarkadakis to explain every single concept and the related history in detail. I am probably more interested to learn about his original idea and proposal, than to learn about the history and concepts of democracy, AI, and blockchain (which should be quite familiar to readers who are attracted by the introduction of the book). I remember that it is probably halfway through the book when his actual proposal is finally introduced - and I was like, man, what a longer-than-expected introduction to the core message of the book! But again, I imagine that some readers would appreciate the thorough background before getting to the meat of the book.

Finally, on a personal note, thank you for standing against authoritarianism and giving a shoutout to my hometown, Hong Kong, toward the end of the book. As was said in the book - let's take hope and inspiration from those who filled the streets of Hong Kong, and think about how we can best leverage these new technologies, to continue striving for liberty, democracy, and freedom for all.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.