{"id":29610,"date":"2017-10-04T06:00:51","date_gmt":"2017-10-04T10:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=29610"},"modified":"2017-10-05T07:29:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-05T11:29:00","slug":"silicon-valleys-religiosity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/10\/silicon-valleys-religiosity\/","title":{"rendered":"Technology as Godhead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"digitization-2170808_1280\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A new religion has been founded:\u00a0 The\u00a0Way of the Future.<\/a> Its purpose, in the words of its registration documents, is to \u201cdevelop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence.\u201d\u00a0 The messiah of this new religion is Anthony Levandowski, a key engineer of self-driving cars who is now in big legal trouble <\/a>for stealing Google secrets on behalf of his employer, Uber.<\/p>\n

\n

Other technologists fear what artificial intelligence might become.\u00a0\u00a0Elon Musk said<\/a>, \u201cWith artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon.\u201d\u00a0 Levandowski is going to worship it as a God.<\/p>\n

Or, rather, we human beings, through our technology, are going to create our own God.\u00a0 \u00a0Artificial intelligence is currently very limited, but the assumption is that it will keep developing until computers reach the \u201csingularity.\u201d\u00a0 At that point, they will become more intelligent than human beings and will start acting on their own, for better or worse.\u00a0 Levandowski\u2019s deity does not yet exist, but it\u2019s only a matter of time and ever-advancing technology.\u00a0 Here is what John Brandon <\/a>believes\u00a0this AI God might be like:<\/p>\n

In the next 25 years, AI will evolve to the point where it will know more on an intellectual level than any human. In the next 50 or 100 years, an AI might know more than the entire population of the planet put together. At that point, there are serious questions to ask about whether this AI \u2014 which could design and program additional AI programs all on its own, read data from an almost infinite number of data sources, and control almost every connected device on the planet \u2014 will somehow rise in status to become more like a god, something that can write its own bible and draw humans to worship it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But this is nothing new.\u00a0 Sarah Jones of the\u00a0New Republic,<\/em>\u00a0in discussing this new religion, observes that\u00a0\u00a0Silicon Valley in general is full of religiosity, seeking to conquer death, save humanity, and addressing other religious preoccupations by means of technology. She says, in her article\u00a0Silicon Valley\u2019s Religious Drive<\/a><\/p>\n

No matter how far the tech industry advances, its genius minds can\u2019t exorcise their humanity. The\u00a0belief<\/a>\u00a0that we could one day evolve into a new, technologically enhanced species; Peter Thiel\u2019s rumored lust for\u00a0young blood<\/a>, which would supposedly help him live forever; cryogenic resurrection\u2014they thinly disguise the same fear of death and desire for salvation that propel religions the world over. In this respect, a divine bot seems less like science fiction and more like an inevitable development, proof of what\u00a0<\/i>Samuel Loncar has called<\/a>\u00a0\u201ca vibrant religious culture\u201d in the Valley.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Attaining immortality by downloading one\u2019s consciousness into the internet; the coming millennium in which human beings will solve all of their problems when they become one with their machines; the abolition of the flesh when we abandon our bodies to live in a spiritual state within the internet\u2013these are all religious fantasies, though the religion is deeply pagan.<\/p>\n

Already, Google appears to be omniscient, both in knowing everything in the world and everything about each of us.\u00a0 Amazon seems to be omnipotent.\u00a0 The \u201cinternet of things\u201d makes the online realm omnipresent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does it mean to have a god?,\u201d asked Luther in the Large Catechism<\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cAnswer: A god means that from which we are to expect all good. . . . That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this sense, the new god is already here, with millions of worshippers.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Illustration by geralt, via Pixabay, CC0, Creative Commons<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a movement to start a new religion based on technology and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":29619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,44],"tags":[218,5585,1569,5795],"class_list":["post-29610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religions","category-technology","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-cyber-religion","tag-new-religions","tag-way-of-the-future"],"yoast_head":"\nTechnology as Godhead<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A controversial engineer has started a new religion devoted to "a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence.\u201d The tech world is full of religiosity.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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