Perhaps in the near future, believers will be able to join a new church worshiping an artificial god.
Path of the future
In 2015, former Google and Uber engineer Anthony Lewandowski applied to create the Future Path, a nonprofit religious organization dedicated to worshiping artificial intelligence.
The mission of the church, according to Backchannel, where the news first appeared, is to "develop and promote an artificial intelligence-based deity and, through understanding and worship, contribute to a better society."
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Lewandowski is known to be the CEO and President of Future Path. Presumably there is no vacancy for a High Priest in the organization.
Author and religious scholar Candy Kann, who teaches comparative religion at Baylor University, says Lewandowski's spiritual initiative is not historically odd.
“It seems to me that Lewandowski's idea looks like a typical American religion,” said Cannes. - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and Scientology are clearly American traditions that focus on very forward-thinking religious views. Mormons discuss other planets and extraterrestrial life, while Scientology focuses on therapy and psychological worldview, which is a fairly modern and forward-looking mindset."
According to Cannes, the concept of worshiping artificial intelligence even has some resonance with one of the world's main religions.
“In terms of comparative religion, I think it's more like Hinduism, which has avatars of deities found on Earth,” she said. "Thus, artificial intelligence can become a reflection of the best people to be worshiped."
Theft of patents
Lewandowski is accused of stealing patents while he was an engineer at Google and using them to build his own self-driving car, which was later acquired by Uber for $ 680 million. Uber denies information about the alleged theft or about using Google technology to build its own car. The creators of Waymo, Google's self-driving car, filed a lawsuit against Lewandowski in February. Uber fired him in May, claiming he was not legally associated with it.
AI hazard warnings
Levendowski's attempt to create an AI-worshiping church comes amid apocalyptic warnings from luminaries in the world of science and technology such as Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking about the dangers of artificial intelligence. Elon Musk, for example, said several years ago that he is investing heavily in artificial intelligence in many ways in order to monitor its development, since it can become a potential threat to humanity.
“We use artificial intelligence to summon a demon,” said the founder of Tesla and SpaceX. “In all those stories where there is a guy with a pentagram and holy water … It looks like he is confident that he can control the demon. But it doesn't work."
Lewandowski's motivation
Former friend and colleague Lewandowski, cited by Backchannel, gives us some insight into the future church leader's views on robots and artificial intelligence.
“He had this very strange motivation for robots conquering the world as if they had to do it militarily,” says an unknown engineer and former friend of Lewandowski. "Looks like he wanted to be able to control the world, and AI can do that."
But, as Kann points out, it's important to remember that any assumptions about Lewandowski's motivation are based on only one document.
“To me, it looks more like a new paradigm from which new religious practices can emerge,” said Cannes. "It doesn't sound too much like religion, nor does it sound like a religious worldview."
Anna Pismenna