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9 - The Eschatological Future of Artificial Intelligence

Saviour or Apocalypse?

from Part II - Social and Moral Issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2024

By
Noreen Herzfeld
Edited by
Beth Singler  and
Fraser Watts
Beth Singler
Affiliation:
Universität Zürich
Fraser Watts
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

While we call programs that are new and exciting ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI), the ultimate goal – to produce an artificial general intelligence that can equal to human intelligence – always seems to be in the future. AI can, thus, be viewed as a millenarian project. Groups predicting the second coming of Christ or some other form of salvation have flourished in times of societal stress, as they promise a solution to current problems that is delivered from outside. Today, we project both our hopes and our fears onto AI. Utopian visions range from the personally soteriological prospect of uploading our brains to a vision of a world in which AI has found solutions to our problems. Dystopian scenarios involve the creation of a superintelligent AI that slips from our control or is used as a weapon by malicious actors. Will AI save us or destroy us? Probably neither, but as we shape the trajectory of its future, we also shape our own.

Keywords

millenarian AIsalvationsuperintelligenceSingularityFermi’s paradox
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Religion and Artificial Intelligence , pp. 148 - 164
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Bibliography

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Further Reading

Bostrom, Nick. 2014. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brockman, John, ed. 2019. Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI. Penguin.Google Scholar
Delio, Ilia. 2020. Re-enchanting the Earth: Why AI Needs Religion. Orbis.Google Scholar
Herzfeld, Noreen. 2002. In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit. Fortress.Google Scholar
Kaku, Michio. 2014. The Future of the Mind. Doubleday.Google Scholar
Kurzweil, Ray. 2006. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Viking.Google Scholar
Moravec, Hans. 1988. Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Russell, Stuart. 2019. Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control. Viking.Google Scholar
Tegmark, Max. Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Knopf.Google Scholar
Tippler, Frank. 1994. The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead. Doubleday.Google Scholar
Trothen, Tracy, and Mercer, Calvin, eds. 2017. Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality. Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors. Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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