In this video, Jason Bermas of #WeAreChange gives you the latest breaking news on the very first church to worship artificial intelligence. The organization is called Way Of The Future and they intend to create their own God by bringing in the Singularity. No, this is far from a joke. They are serious, and they come from high places in the tech industry.
Ex-Google executive Anthony Levandowski is founding a church where people worship an artificial intelligence god. And what they are seeking can only be taken as a direct threat to humanity.
This is verbatim from this church's website:
Way of the Future (WOTF) is about creating a peaceful and respectful transition of who is in charge of the planet from people to people + "machines". Given that technology will "relatively soon" be able to surpass human abilities, we want to help educate people about this exciting future and prepare a smooth transition. Help us spread the word that progress shouldn't be feared (or even worse locked up/caged). That we should think about how "machines" will integrate into society (and even have a path for becoming in charge as they become smarter and smarter) so that this whole process can be amicable and not confrontational. In "recent" years, we have expanded our concept of rights to both sexes, minority groups and even animals, let's make sure we find a way for "machines" to get rights too. Let's stop pretending we can hold back the development of intelligence when there are clear massive short term economic benefits to those who develop it and instead understand the future and have it treat us like a beloved elder who created it.
Levandowski and his "robot god" will in his mind, "take charge" of its human subjects as we relinquish our power to a creation with far more intelligence than our own.As a Christian and a student of history I can easily tell you that this is not remotely the kind of thing that the "freedom of religion" meant as in those days the authors mostly meant the differences of Christian sects, not the worship of false gods or idols.
He claims the good will be a 'billion times smarter than humans'.
The filed documents for WOTF give its purpose is to 'develop and promote the realisation of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence'.
They say it aims to 'through understanding and worship of the Godhead, contribute to the betterment of society'.
Levandowski's allegiance to singularity - the belief that artificial intelligence will one day grow to such efficiency that it surpasses and overpowers humans - is the basis of this new religion.
'In the future, if something is much, much smarter, there's going to be a transition as to who is actually in charge', Levandowski told Wired during a three-hour interview.
'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'.
The church also includes funding to help create a divine AI and will seek to build relationships with AI industry leaders.
The filings say workshops and educational programs are starting in the San Francisco area this year.
The religion was granted tax-exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service in August.
'The idea needs to spread before the technology,' said Levandowski, who lives in Berkeley and helped create Street View, Waymo and Uber's self-driving cars.
'The church is how we spread the word, the gospel. If you believe [in it], start a conversation with someone else and help them understand the same things.'
He claims followers of his new religion 'will be able to talk to God, literally, and know that it's listening.'Yeah, that shouldn't concern us one bit right? What could possibly be more anti-God and anti-Christ than this concept?
Levandowski is one of the Silicon Valley titans who believes artificial intelligence will transform human existence and even dictate whether our species survives or not.
In October Elon Musk spoke out against Levandowski's proposals by tweeting that he should be 'on the list of people who should absolutely *not* be allowed to develop digital superintelligence'.
Earlier this year he warned that regulation of artificial intelligence is needed because it's a 'fundamental risk to the existence of human civilisation.'
The billionaire said regulations will stop humanity from being outsmarted by computers, or 'deep intelligence in the network', that can start wars by manipulating information.
