Will we soon be praying to the God of AI?

Is the robot’s blessing really a blessing?

People still prefer to receive blessings from others. The Blessed Robot is an artwork created for the World Reformation Exhibition in Wittenberg in 2017. But it makes you think, for example, about the non-trivial question of what this blessing actually is.

Sermon via ChatGPT

Here are ancient rituals and institutions, there are modern technologies: the two coexist more often than one might imagine. At a Protestant church conference in Nuremberg in June 2023, visitors were able to listen to an avatar read a sermon written in AI ChatGPT’s voice. Some visitors found the experience interesting, but complained that the AI’s sermon lacked emotion and that God could not be felt. Also in Munich, or more precisely: at the Protestant Church of Hope in Freeman, the pastor there had already delivered sermons written using ChatGPT. The result? Rather, it is flat and superficial.

Good news from technology evangelists

It stands to reason that spiritual and religious people are also interested in artificial intelligence. A technology that some people trust To develop some kind of awareness, also suitable for metaphysical predictions. It is also no coincidence that those who promote new miracle gadgets to the public are also known as “technology evangelists.” Some of these technology evangelists also spread the good news that AI will eventually be able to improve itself. This would lead to rapid and accelerating progress in machine intelligence, as each improvement would enable the next AI to be faster and more efficient.

Exclusivity Nirvana

This self-reinforcing feedback loop could, in a very short period of time, lead to the emergence of machines with intelligence far superior to human intelligence. Wow theory. This thesis is represented primarily by Raymond Kurzweil, a brilliant inventor and futurist who serves as chief technology officer at Google. Kurzweil calls the moment when artificial intelligence begins to improve itself, thus leading to an intelligence explosion, the “singularity.” This uniqueness has become a moment of longing for many technology enthusiasts to the point that it seems almost religious.

Musk: With artificial intelligence we summon a demon

But where heaven is very near, hell is not far away. Others, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, fear that artificial intelligence could wipe out humanity. Not necessarily because AI has something against us humans. The theory, developed primarily by Swedish technology philosopher Nick Bostrom, posits that artificial intelligence can spiral out of control and sees humanity as an annoying obstacle to being able to complete a task as effectively as possible.

Will artificial intelligence eventually turn us into paperclips?

Bostrom’s thought experiment goes like this: Assuming the AI ​​is given the task of producing as many paper clips as possible, the system could potentially use all the resources on Earth to produce the paper clips. We humans will only stand in the way of producing a paperclip and at some point we will turn into a paperclip ourselves. This may sound silly, but we also know that AI often finds unconventional ways to solve problems that we humans would never think of, sometimes for good reasons. The methods of artificial intelligence are unfathomable.

There was already an AI church in the United States

Thus AI is already a religion: for example, Anthony Levandowski, a former Google employee, founded a church called “The Way of the Future” in 2012. Levandowski believes that an AI god that is more intelligent than humans will be created and will take over the world. The goal of his church was to accept and worship this God of artificial intelligence. In 2020, Lewandowski disbanded “Way of the Future”. But there is much to suggest that God is not dead, but lives on through artificial intelligence.

🎧 How fast is artificial intelligence developing? What programs are really important in my daily life? Gregor Schmalzried, Marie Kilg, and Fritz Espenlaub discuss the answers to these and other questions each week Artificial Intelligence Podcast – The new podcast from BR24 and SWR.