Deus Ex Machina: Religion in the age of Artificial Intelligence
Religious doctrine may yet be of some use in the New Tech World
Talking about machine learning and deep learning is one thing. Seeing their connections to the divine is something else entirely. As artificial intelligence startups and use cases flourish, it’s important to take a step back and see the whole picture.
The Artificial Intelligence vocabulary has always been a phantasmagorical entanglement of messianic dreams and apocalyptic visions, repurposing words such as “transcendence”, “mission”, “evangelists” and “prophets”. Elon Musk himself went as far as to say in 2014 that “with artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon”, later speaking of an A.I which would “rise in status to become more like a god, something that can write its own bible and draw humans to worship it”. These hyperboles may be no more than men and women at a loss for words, seeking refuge in a familiar metaphysical lexicon, as Einstein and Hawking once did. After all, America has always benefited from nondenominational religious themes as part of its national identity, which may have seeped through to its everyday language. And though many in the tech world have indeed been quick to dismiss such talks, religious discussion may yet have its place in the A.I discourse, if only for the sake…
