Humans Dumb Enough To Create AI Based Religion – OpEd
By MINA
Former Google and Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski founded AI-based religion, The Way of the Future, so people can worship a “Godhead” robot that is a billion times smarter than humans.
He wants to create a new “church” that revolves around Artificial Intelligence and has people worshipping at the feet of a super-machine.
And tech experts have said humans are likely to accept the robot as a higher being.
John Mitchell, a lawyer and AI expert, said human beings, in general, tend to “worship supreme understanding”.
Mr Mitchell claims the same drive that compels people to believe in God and follow religions will work for Artificial Intelligence.
He explained: “We [believe] there must be some higher power that causes lightning, sunsets, and crashing waves – or at least speaks to the bottom of our beings, rather than ignore them as ho-hum background.”
Dr. Stephen Thaler, the President and CEO of Imagination Engines and an AI and consciousness expert, has claimed people will rely on AI to provide solutions to society’s problems.
“An AI would provide the equivalent of a ‘Messiah’ – having many orders of magnitude more processing elements than the brain, enabling it to gift us with solutions to the most daunting social, political, economic, and environmental challenges,” he said.
But some experts think AI will be so advanced it won’t actually want to be worshipped by people.
Author and consultant Peter Scott said: “I would expect the AIs that evolve in the next 50 years to be very rational and, if conscious, not want to be worshipped.
“If they have the human race’s best interests at heart (and God help us if they don’t) then they would want us to have as much right of self-determination as possible.
The Way of the Future founder unveiled his plan for his super-religion last month.
He said: “What is going to be created will effectively be a god.
“It’s not a god in the sense that it makes lighting or causes hurricanes.
“But if there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else are you going to call it.” Well… how about a computer?