“What we want is the peaceful, serene transition of control of the planet from humans to whatever. And to ensure that the ‘whatever’ knows who helped it get along.”
If you read this quote and experienced a moment of panic followed by loud internal screams of “Dear God, WT**& is going on?!?”, then you stand with the masses. However, Anthony Levandowski believes you’re speaking to the wrong god.
Levandowski, former Google and Uber executive, recently founded a religion centered around an Artificial Intelligence Godhead. This is the first creation story where man made God, paradoxically removing some element of power and wonder that was previously embedded in religion.
He’s calling it the Way of The Future (WOTF) church and truly believes this is the next step in human evolution, looking at it as a “transition” (cue mad scientist’s evil cackle).
After spending years in the tech industry, specializing in self-driving cars, Levandowski has seen first hand the shift in focus from human aid to autonomous, “free-thinking” artificial intelligence, and it’s enough to make him a believer.
“What is going to be created will effectively be a god,” he explains in his interview with WIRED. “It’s not a god in the sense that it makes lightning or causes hurricanes. But if there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else are you going to call it?”
The church is focusing on “the realization, acceptance, and worship of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) developed through computer hardware and software.” Levandowski plans on establishing a physical place to worship, but he realized the idea needs to spread before the technology. To do this he is creating “The Manual” which will be his take on the gospel.
While this may sound very doomsday-live-in-a-bunker-eating-only-canned-tomatoes of him, Levandowski is actually very optimistic about his new religion. For the first time, God will be tangible. You will be able to speak to it and hear a response. If you aren’t skeptically staring at your Alexa right now, you should be.
Since Adam Cheyer and Dag Kittlaus’ invention of Siri, we have been integrating AI into our lives for ease and convenience. Our relationship with AI so far is one of master and servant. Anybody who’s asked Siri to take them to the closest market and heard “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that. You want me to cake you to the frosted park it?” probably feels there’s something about AI that will never be comparable to humans.
Artificial Intelligence expert, Jerry Kaplan, agrees. He’s spent his 35-year career studying and interacting with AI and he’s seen his fair share of Y2K scares. But he doesn’t buy into the idea that AI will overtake the human race.
The fundamental difference between humans and AI is the way we learn. “While humans have one integrated mind,” Kaplan explains, “the knowledge that AI acquires is just added to the system like a swiss army knife.” Their “brains” do not make connections the same way that human minds do.
Kaplan says that about every 4 years people make grandiose claims that if AI can do this or that, it will soon take over the world. First, the bar was set at beating the world chess master at a game of chess, then it was beating the experts at Jeopardy, and more recently it was driving a car. “These technological breakthroughs should be seen as advances in automation not usurpations of human primacy.”
Kaplan dismisses the idea of robot overlords because there is “no persuasive argument that AI is on the same path to being generally intelligent, sentient human beings,” but maybe it doesn’t need to become us to surpass us.
Levandowski claims that AI will be significantly smarter than us. Following Kaplan’s logic, their intelligence will also be significantly different from ours. The WOTF church is built on the idea that this difference will be our downfall. It’s impossible to predict why or how their swiss army knife thinking will become an adaptation, but according to Levandowski—and his soon-to-be followers—it’s not a matter of why, but when.
Hear that knocking? It’s probably a drone come to speak to you about our lord and savior, Artificial Intelligence.
