I had been meaning to blog about the movie Ex Machina for a while now. It makes explicit the potential for the creation of artificial intelligence to be thought of in terms of godlikeness. It is interesting that, whenever we imagine creation of sentient beings taking place, whether in Genesis or sci-fi, they never fail to rebel against their creator(s). Does this reflect the impact of Genesis? Or does all this human storytelling, Genesis included, reflect our experience with children, made in our image, who inevitably have to rise up against the authority of parents in order to carve out their own identity? How do stories about AI help us to get a different perspective on Genesis, and vice versa?
Jim Davila pointed out an article about whether human nature has more to do with inner conflict than thought, and the implications of this for artificial intelligence. Nature and Commonweal also had pieces about Ex Machina
Yuval Noah Harari predicts that we will be God-like cyborgs within 200 years. Marginalia Review of Books looked at Silicon Valley’s outlook in religious terms. Business Insider explored Ray Kurzweil’s law of accelerating returns. Nick Bostrom gave a TED Talk about what happens when our computers become smarter than we are. And there was also an article by a transhumanist candidate for president.
And finally, a cartoon courtesy of People in White Coats:
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