An AI god will emerge by 2042 and write its own bible

[HAB911]

Will you worship it?

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 — 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 — will somehow rise in status to become more like a god, something that can write its own bible and draw humans to worship it.

Recently, reports surfaced that a controversy-plagued engineer who once worked at Uber has started a new religion. Anthony Levandowski filed paperwork for a nonprofit religious organization called The Way of the Future. Its mission: “To develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on artificial intelligence and through understanding and worship of the Godhead contribute to the betterment of society.”
Building divinity

Of course, this is nothing new. The Singularity is another quasi-spiritual idea that believes an AI will become smarter than humans at some point. You might laugh at the notion of an AI being so powerful that humans bow down to worship it, but several experts who talked to VentureBeat argue that the idea is a lot more feasible than you might think.

One of the experts is Vince Lynch, who started a company called IV.AI that builds custom AI for the enterprise. Lynch explained how there are some similarities between organized religion and how an AI actually works. In the Bible used by Christians, for example, Lynch says there are many recurring themes, imagery, and metaphors.

https://venturebeat.com/2017/10/02/an-ai-god-will-emerge-by-2042-and-write-its-own-bible-will-you-worship-it/

[guillaumeb]

1. The human creators of the AI will be inspired by the Creator.

Its machine intelligence will be a pale reflection of the Creator's intelligence, but humans will see that pale reflection as far superior to human intelligence.

[trotsky]

4. What proof do you have of these claims?

Oh yeah, none.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

5. But who was the Creator inspired by?

I mean, it's just turtles all the way down if you use your logic.

[guillaumeb]

7. Mitch McConnell is immortal?

He has been in Washington for quite a long time, but I do not believe that he has literally been there forever.

[DetlefK]

13. That was just disproven: An AI can self-develop without being tainted by (religious) prejudices.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/18/16495548/deepmind-ai-go-alphago-zero-self-taught

------------------

They gave the AI nothing but the rules for the board-game Go. From this, the AI taught itself how to play Go by playing against itself over and over again. It easily beat another Go-AI (which had easily beaten human Go-players), without having any experience whatsoever what it's like playing against other "people".

[guillaumeb]

14. The AI was literally assembled and created by humans.

It did not assemble and program itself.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

17. I don't think you understand AI

[guillaumeb]

18. So it was not assembled and initially programmed by humans?

Please enlighten me.

[DetlefK]

27. Imagine...

Imagine being a deaf person who reads in a book about sound. And starting with nothing but this information you teach yourself from scratch how to compose a symphony.

Approximately that's how this AI became the best Go-player in the world.

Nobody ever told the AI "this is how you play this game", "this is how it's supposed to be played", "this is how other people play it" ...
All the AI was taught is "this is possible and that is not possible", and from that it created a world.

[trotsky]

28. guillaumeb is of course caught in the limited traditional theistic mindset.

He'll argue that the AI didn't build the computer it is running on, or write the code on which it learned how to play the game, etc.

[guillaumeb]

38. And your response will be?

[trotsky]

43. I could tell you what my response would be,

but I wasn't talking to you.

[guillaumeb]

44. So when you respond to my question directed to others?

[trotsky]

45. Then you are free to respond to me or not.

I honestly don't give a rat's ass. You keep showing everyone exactly the kind of Christian you are. That's all I want from you.

[guillaumeb]

33. Did the AI spring spontaneously from the head of Zeus?

Sorry, an unavoidable theistic reference.

My comment indicated that the AI is housed in something that was created by humans. The AI did not miraculously (sorry, another religious reference) spring into being. That which houses the circuits was created.

[trotsky]

36. ...

Called it.

[AtheistCrusader]

40. Not theology. Mythology.

Zeus sprang into being as well. From the imagination of humans.

Nihil sub sole novum.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

46. There are others here clearly more capable of that than I

It would be presumptuous to explain over their voice. The response to this request of yours is a good indication of my understanding of what you don't understand.

[guillaumeb]

47. And judging by your response, you do not either.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

48. Whatever gets you through the day.

I'm not stumped at the "it is limited by the person writing the code" concept, so there's that.

[trotsky]

53. It's really remarkable how theistic arguments haven't evolved AT ALL.

He's of course following the old "uncaused cause" line of reasoning which states:

1. Everything must have a cause.
2. But not the thing I say doesn't need a cause.
3. Ergo, god.
4. Checkmate, atheists!

[AtheistCrusader]

29. Claiming yet more things as the property of your god.

You never quit, do you?

[guillaumeb]

35. Some non-theists never abandon their own crusade,

and some theists see all of creation as evidence of the Creator. Thus the descriptive word theists.

[AtheistCrusader]

37. I will never abandon my 'crusade' to be viewed as I am, and not the shitty biology project of

some supernatural thing you insist created me.

I am not your god's property, and I do not believe you when you say your god exists.

[guillaumeb]

39. Property is your word.

And you do not have to believe anything.

[AtheistCrusader]

41. The only thing that made me, is my parents.

If you want people like me to stop bristling at your ideas, stop insisting we were made by something you can't prove.

You're welcome to think it, but when you tell us that, you're inviting a reaction.

[Dave Starsky]

2. Colossus: The Forbin Project

[longship]

20. Great flick!

Love it.

Welcome to world control!"

[Dave Starsky]

21. I was surprised how chilling it was.

And I saw it for the first time not too long ago.

[Kolesar]

26. Double feature with The Andromeda Strain at the drive-in forty years ago

As a young teenager, those fantasies just blew me away.
Brother took me in our Pontiac Tempest.

[AtheistCrusader]

30. I have no mouth and I must scream.

[Dave Starsky]

49. That's an even better example.

I wish I'd thought of it.

[Kolesar]

51. Makes me think of "Johnny Got His Gun"

The disabled veteran of the Great War with no limbs or sight.

[Dave Starsky]

54. But it still has intelligence.

That is a horrible state to even contemplate.

[Cartoonist]

3. If the AI is truly intelligent

Then it will have nothing to do with god or religion.

[Voltaire2]

55. that would make it conscious and ethically intelligent

but AI is not (currently) conscious or self reflective , it just grinds away mechanically at data sets searching for algorithms that produce correct results for specific desired outcomes. The "desired outcomes" come from external sources.

[Irish_Dem]

6. Mankind is doing a bad job running the planet. Maybe AI will do better than humans.

[guillaumeb]

8. And eliminate the humans?

[Irish_Dem]

10. I think mother nature is taking care of that piece. Will save AI the trouble. :(

[AtheistCrusader]

31. We have already created self-replicating information that does not require humanity to continue.

[DetlefK]

9. The novel "Golem XIV" by Stanislav Lem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem_XIV

An AI is growing and growing in intelligence. It knows that soon it will no longer be able to meaningfully communicate with humans. So it gives one last public lecture on the human and the cosmos...



Another possibility are AIs as depicted in the "Culture"-novels by the late (and great) Iain Banks: AIs are the benevolent rulers of mankind. Humans no longer have any political power. The AIs really like the humans and want to see them happy, but they do not regard the humans as equals. To them, humans are like unruly teenagers you have to keep in check.

[Moostache]

11. Skynet will become self-aware and within a millisecond of that event, humanity ends.

Either that, or the AI will simply design itself a rocket and space faring craft to exist in and leave the Earth in search of a new home world free of humanity and the death-ride we have put the planet on...

I hope the AI decides to leave...because if it decides to stay, the elimination of humanity as a destructive force on the planet is the primary threat to its survival and one that will be ruthlessly executed to preserve the AI and eliminate said threat.

EDIT: the primary thing to consider about AI, especially self-aware AI is this...it will by definition be free of the learned and uniquely human religious baggage that infects the species. The ideas of "morality" and "absolute truths" will have zero meaning to pure AI. The AI is more likely to be akin to "Spock" or "Data" than a priest or imam or witch.

Unless the AI is programmed to have all of humanity's religious baggage as a "feature", that will never arise in it as a "bug" ... as it did in humanity.

[Loki Liesmith]

16. AI won't DO anything

because it has no motivations.

Our motivations come from billions of years of biological drives for safety, lust, food...

Pure intelligence, the ability to process information has no drives. It doesn't want anything. And we don't understand how the feeling of desire is produced. So we can't make it want something.

Why would an advanced AI do ANYTHING it hasn't been told to do? It hasn't been built to care.

[HAB911]

25. It hasn't been built to care.

if it can be, it will

[AtheistCrusader]

42. Blending terms.

commercial AI, machine learning, all that good stuff isn't a 'Cortana' like AI. We're a long way off from the dreams of sci-fi where a chunk of code and circuitry will develop it's own purposes.

But it's likely within our lifetimes.

[HAB911]

12. Elon Mush is really screaming about this

I find it disconcerting that we see this coming but there is nothing we can/will do about it. I think is is evolution on steroids.

[AtheistCrusader]

32. Wait until AI is as common as 3d printing.

There's already concerns in the 3d printing hobbyist 'Maker' space, with plastic guns and things like that. Things that people want to regulate, and can't because the technology isn't regulate-able.

AI will become the same thing, at some point. Not there yet. Current AI levels aren't anything like that in the OP. But some day.

[Loki Liesmith]

15. This isn't going to happen

I work in AI.

This is fiction.

[longship]

19. Yup! It's a Ray Kurzweil "Matrix" wet dream.

Singularity, my ass!

[HAB911]

24. Curious why you believe this

because we have the power plug in our hand or what?

[AtheistCrusader]

34. Sure. There's already AI attempts at writing fiction, so a 'bible' is a natural first starting point

We already use algorithms to evaluate human cultural marketability. Hollywood uses them to evaluate movie scripts and estimate profitability.

Short leap to something that 'thinks' about it. Or 'creates' it. Image search AI for Google 'dreams in psychedelic technicolor nightmares already. Some people look at that and thing it genuinely represents creative effort.

Won't be long now. (but it won't look exactly like it is characterized in the OP article)

[Dave Starsky]

50. 40 years ago I never even dreamed...

That almost every American would hold a computer in their hand that could answer nearly any question you would ask it. That was a ridiculous idea back then.

So what ideas are ridiculous in the next 40 years?

[HopeAgain]

22. Anybody can write a Bible and people will follow it

Even ridiculous ones like L Ron Hubbard. That's what we call religion without spirituality. That's when religion becomes dogmatic and dangerous. I think even a computer would fuck up spirituality. It is such a personal and variable thing, and since AI isn't the human psyche, I think it will fall short.

The important role that religion should play, and successful spirituality does play, is a bridge between the emotions and the intellect. We just aren't to the point where we can control one (emotions or intellect) without dealing with the other.

[yallerdawg]

23. "It's not an easy thing to meet your maker."

AI will never question "Who and why?"

Unless it asks, "Who moved the Prime Mover?"

Which would be a damn fine question to get resolved!

[NeoGreen]

52. Ahhh...No.

Plus it will likely be written in binary. And you thought Greek or Latin were difficult to learn.

[HAB911]

56. I will report back soon I hope

I just invested a modest sum in this ETF

http://www.businessinsider.com/ai-powered-equity-etf-stock-aieq-market-robot-revolution-2017-10

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/aieq