The Church of Artificial Intelligence: A Religion in Need of a Responsible Theology

A decade ago, the prospect of a religion that worships Artificial Intelligence would have seemed absurd, a fringe delusion both socially unacceptable and technologically improbable. In the last several years, however, advances in machine learning, robotics, cognitive science, genetic editing, and other fields have given rise to the belief that the destiny of our species will be determined by technology--whether it saves us or destroys us. Although the machine-as-god theme has appeared in science fiction as far back as far back as Isaac Asimov's short stories "The Last Question" and "Reason," and more recently in films like The Matrix and iRobot, the divinization of AI is no longer merely a fancy of fiction. It has become a mainstream metaphor, as evidenced by the growing number of scientists who openly describe technological progress in religious terms, including Hans Peter Moravec, Allen Newell, Ray Kurzweil, and Hugo de Garis. But this drive to replace the old gods and old religions with the new ones of science and technology doesn't stop at metaphor.