Review of Yuval Noah Harari's "Nexus" — and why we don't need self-correcting mechanisms for "alien intelligence"

I just finished Yuval Noah Harari's Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age. The book provides a high-level analysis of information systems throughout history, with some warnings about the dangers of AI on today's systems. It's a remarkable book with many historical insights and interpretations that made history click for me. But the central idea of the book focuses on self-correcting mechanisms (SCMs) and how these SCMs are the linchpin of thriving democracies, so that's what I'll focus on in my review. The book also argues that AI is a form of alien intelligence that might incorrectly execute goals we don't want it to follow.