Artificial Intelligence is not God | Wired

To be human He longs for Sky Daddy. Something explains the inexplicable, someone deserves blame. No wonder then that in the ZIRP-fueled 2000s, when a new gospel of creationism spread, some people began to see technology as a kind of religion. On the eighth day, he created a mobile application that delivers our daily bread– That kind of thing.

Startup founders and CEOs have become messianic figures. Giving alms has a new name: Effective altruism. Biohacking has become a ritual, and exclusivity seems closer than ever. This would save humanity from “the scourge of the Bible as it has ever existed: death itself,” Greg Epstein, a humanist chaplain at Harvard and MIT, wrote in his book. Technology atheist. All of this was as close as Silicon Valley, famous for its skepticism but not its secret libertarianism, came to openly embracing theology.

Then there was a turn: prominent technologists began to preach technology not as a religion but religion As a religion. Earlier this year, I found myself in an expensive apartment, converted from a church, in San Francisco’s Mission District, listening to a venture capitalist-turned-arms dealer recite portions of the Lord’s Prayer to a crowd of 200 techies. Inspired by a religious speech Peter Thiel gave at a private birthday party a few years ago, the venture capitalist wife launched a group called ACTS 17 Collective — Confessing Christ in Technology and Society — as a way to spread the gospel in Silicon Valley. the actual The gospel, not the elegant solutions of technology.

One of the businessmen sitting next to me that night admitted that he had long been religious. He doesn’t feel comfortable wearing his faith on his sleeve in Silicon Valley just yet. Someone in the audience asked me, in casual conversation, how many kids I wanted (not with him; just in general). Be fruitful and multiply and all that. Recently, Thiel gave a series of informal lectures to an ACTS 17 audience, making clear in no uncertain terms his belief that the young Swedish climate and anti-war activist represents the Antichrist.

In the weeks after right-wing Christian activist Charlie Kirk was publicly assassinated, prominent tech experts began posting religious clips on X. “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us,” Elon Musk wrote. Venture capitalist Jason Calacanis — who has also criticized ICE for its violence against immigrants — offered a comprehensive apology to anyone he offended. “I’m always trying to get better at what I do and as a child of Christ,” he wrote on X. If the most cruel capitalists find religion again, maybe there is hope for the rest of us. After all, religion and capitalism are very good at creating incentives for us humans.

And above all, now there is artificial intelligence. What role does he play? He – she Playing in the new religion? Waymo co-founder Anthony Levandowski started his famous AI company a decade ago — this stuff isn’t exactly new. He suggested that artificial intelligence be worshiped as a kind of god.

So… he should?

No. No, right? Good. Depends on who you ask, or how literal the interpretation is. Musk recently joked that by the time all of OpenAI’s copyright infringement lawsuits are settled, the legal system will be irrelevant, because “we’ll have a digital god. So, you can ask the digital god.” On Twitch, thousands of people are watching AI Jesus’ live stream as I write this. Some people ask for recommendations for pizza in Chicago; Others wonder if they will go to hell for masturbating. The handsome, ethereal AI-powered Christ pauses before saying “Lou Malnati’s” or “The concept of self-love is important” and then sums it all up in the Bible. (The pizza recipe alone may be proof enough that AI doesn’t know everything.)